One lone voice fights for human rights in China

Over the years, he has carved out a network of mainlanders willing to call his beeper. Some are remnants of the shattered political dissident movements or families or friends of detainees. Others are mainland Chinese reporters who phone him from public booths, where calls are harder to trace.

"I get a lot of leads on my pager from local journalists in China," says Lu.

"They know the big news, but are frustrated that they can't tell it. Some of the time, they feel guilty and they call."

This week, when China labor camp veteran and whistle blower Harry Wu was denied access to Hong Kong, when American Chinese scholars were detained, when members of the outlawed Falun Gong were sent to prison – Lu sent a fax to media representatives throughout Asia.

Not all see Lu in laudatory terms, however. Some view him as a "one man band." He has been criticized for not sharing sources, for trying to monopolize, and at one point for belittling other groups. Moreover, when Lu first got started in the early 1990s, he was accused of fabricating two reports.

Yet in recent years, his reputation has turned around. He is now known for double-checking facts and hand writing press releases so they can't be forged or duplicated. "I've watched his faxes and reports for many years. What's amazing – and I don't use that word often – is that to my knowledge, I've never seen him proved wrong. Basically, there is everyone else, and there is Frank Lu."

In person Lu is unassuming, matter of fact, and a bit restless. He says he suffers from insomnia and other stress-related conditions. He changes cellphones every month, reports that he is sometimes followed, and worries that authorities in Hong Kong, evermore bending to authorities in Beijing, are looking for excuses to shut him down.

HE ALSO says that human-rights work has become extremely difficult. The Chinese economy has been performing well and a new generation of Chinese aren't interested. Funding is also difficult (Lu operates off one main $20,000 grant per year).

"The human rights period in China is slowing down," he says. "It has been forgotten."

To some, the point seems dramatized by the recent absence of criticism in the Geneva forum, an outcome China has long sought.

"Chinese security forces have been effective in rolling up all organized political dissent," says Andrew Nathan of Columbia University in New York. "The last organized movement I know of was the Chinese Democracy Party, all of whose leaders are now in jail. Human rights work on China is a hard slog for all the groups involved."

Beijing officials argue that, gradually, rights are improving in China. They say China has a different concept of human rights, and highlight progress in fundamental areas, like feeding and clothing their enormous population.

"China seeks mutual equality and respect [on the question of human rights]," said foreign media spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue. "China wishes to develop a common consensus and cooperation."

What Lu and others now focus on are crackdowns on underground churches, on spiritual movements like the Falun Gong inside China (itself, largely shut down), and the recent protests of xiagang, or laid off workers. Last month in Liaoning province, coal, steel, and petrochemical workers protested about what they say are inadequate pensions.

When asked why so many of his sources will talk with him, Lu says he adopts a very simple approach. When Lu calls a police station or the courts, or local witnesses, he doesn't say he is a human rights monitor. "They would just hang up." Instead, he says, he operates on the assumption that people want to tell the truth. "I eventually say, 'I just want to know the truth,' and people respond."

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