Laogai Research Foundation

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Can you maybe say, just to conclude, something about your foundation?
Our foundation is called Laogai Research Foundation. Many people still don’t know about it, but actually “laogai” has become a word in every dictionary, just like the Soviet gulag. “Gulag” is a new word created by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and it means Soviet labor camps and Stalinist political crime. The Laogai is the Chinese gulag, Chinese labor camps, and Chinese Communist Party violations. Well, we try to tell people how many camps are inside China and are still running. What is the torture? Who are the people? Even today, if China becomes a free country, a democratic country, we will still have to remember the past – how many camps, how many people were there – we have to expose the truth. Otherwise the history will be covered up and we will repeat history again.

I am afraid I could talk to you for hours. I would like to very much thank you for the time you designated to our interview. I will send your colleagues this record of our conversation and later on I will find some English-speaking volunteers to help with the transcription. If you still have patience with us, we would love to come back to talk to you. We would like to do what you are doing in your foundation, we would like to make stories like yours heard because it is crucial to remember our past. I want to wish you all the best from Prague and I hope we will have the chance to talk again.
Thank you. Good-bye.