I've got a story up at the Personal Democracy Forum (have I mentioned that I have a story up at the Personal Democracy Forum? No? Sorry bout that -- here's a link) on the case of Gulliermo Fariñas Hernandez. He's the Cuban man who is in a hospital down in Santa Clara, because he started starving himself when the Cuban government cut off his email access. As I wrote it up, the heart of the story is the new-agey question of who controls the Internet. But in a real way, it's also the age-old story of man/woman against oppressive government.

So, different in details but quite similar in spirit is the case of Hao Wu. Wu is a Chinese guy with an MBA from Michigan who returned to China to do documentary film work and blogged about it as he went along. About two months ago, the Public Security Bureau (could that name be more chilling?) came and snatched Wu up. No one really knows what Wu did to tick off the PSB, and he hasn't been heard from since. Ethan Zuckerman is tracking the case on this blog and he's created some badges that you can use on your own sites like the one above (which may well say something goofy about me in Chinese, but I'm going on faith here). Rebecca MacKinnon, who worked in China with CNN for a number of years, had an oped in the Washington Post last week where she called Wu's sister's blog "a heartbreaking account of how China's regime eats its young," a practice one wishes everybody would really cut down upon.

Reporters without Borders has a write up and you can join the letter writing campaign here.