Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu dies aged 79

Chinese human rights campaigner Harry Wu, who spent 19 years as a political prisoner and later campaigned against the "laogai" system of labour camps, has died aged 79 while on holiday in Honduras.

A statement on the website of his Laogai Research Foundation described him as "a Catholic and a well-known presence on Capitol Hill for his defence of people who suffered in China's brutal laogai camps". The cause of death was not given.

Mr Wu was born in Shanghai on February 8th, 1937, the year Japan invaded China, one of nine brothers and sisters in a bourgeois family.

As a college student in Wuhan, he criticised the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and also questioned the language used by the Communist Party. He was condemned as a counter-revolutionary rightist. In 1960 he was sentenced to 19 years in the labour camps for his remarks, and he told the Political Prisoners website that the news of his imprisonment drove his mother to suicide, although he did not find out until 14 years after the event.

He spent time in 12 different camps, including nine years in a coalmine in Shanxi, and he also worked building roads and factories, and during his time in the camps he was beaten, tortured and nearly starved to death. He was released in 1979 and in 1985 went to the United States, with $40 in his pocket.

He campaigned on a number of social issues as well as the labour camps, such as the one-child policy of population control.

In 1995 he came back to China as a US citizen and was charged with "stealing state secrets" for his work to expose human rights abuses. He was sentenced to another 15 years in prison, but shortly before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which was attended by Hillary Clinton, he was deported.

The camps were officially abolished in 2013, but Mr Wu maintained until his death that the harsh camps still feature prominently in China’s prison system.

Mr Wu was the author of multiple books, including The Chinese Gulag, Bitter Winds and Troublemaker. He also founded the Laogai Museum in Washington.

He is survived by his son Harrison and former wife Ching Lee, according to the foundation.