Interview Series Episode 2: Secretary Zhang
The man known as Secretary Zhang online was the founder of the 1984bbs, a landmark online forum where Chinese netizens could discuss the news uninhibited by government censorship. Before it shut down this morning, the community boasted over ten thousand active members.
Since the 1984′s founding in 2008, Zhang has been subjected to increasing pressure from local authorities to close the site, which was shut down for several months over this summer as the result of a DOS hacking attack.
The day we spoke with Zhang, coincidentally, was the day after Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When we arrived at his home, he had just gotten back from the local police station, where he had been “invited to tea” and subjected to more threats.
In the interview, he discusses the history of 1984bbs, what he’s learned about the Chinese internet censorship machine, and also his own experiences with police harassment and threats. It’s a long interview, but we promise, it’s worth watching in its entirety.
Interview with Secretary Zhang from ChinaGeeks on Vimeo.
After the interview, the ChinaGeeks Chinese editor and I chatted with Zhang and his wife for some time. Under de-facto house arrest, he told us he wasn’t sure how much more he could take, or whether it was worth the trouble it caused him, his wife, and his family to run the site.
He had not, at that time, decided to close it, but I wasn’t shocked to see yesterday that he is pulling the plug. He has already sacrificed immense amounts of time; he has lost his job and his freedom. It would be hard to blame him for not wanting to find out how much more there is to lose.
This interview was conducted and filmed by ChinaGeeks.org.
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wow. phenomenal interview, great work!
Great video!! Congratulations, ChinaGEEKS.
Yes, indeed. Great video. You are truly taking this site to a new level! Good work!
Would it be much trouble to make an mp3 version available? That would be much more portable.
Otto: I’d be happy to make one. I didn’t think of it, since an audio version would just be in Chinese, which a good deal of our readership can’t read (maybe?). But sure, it’s actually quite simple to do; I’ll get to it when I get home later.
Awesome… Thanks for this interview, but it’s too bad I found out about the site on the day it closed!
Are there archives anywhere?
interesting interview. thanks very much for making it available.
i thought the music was a bit much though.
@ SC: Yeah, probably. I love that song though.
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Wow, this is great stuff. I consider myself to be in the China-defender camp but this is very convincing stuff.
He made one good point at the end: If people are giving a choice of losing jobs (rice bowl) and free speech, most would choose the former (given that people are even interested in politics, most are not). He is the exception, and he knows that his impact will be very limited because of this reason. Yet he still risks his livelihood for what he thinks others should have. Personally I think it’s naive of him but at the same time very admirable. China definitely needs more people like him.
On another note, apparently the personal cellphone signal jammers can be bought for as little as $30 USD and has a 15M radius. I gotta get one of these things for when I travel on airplanes
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