Journalists, friends, and supporters of Feng Zhenghu, who I interviewed in Tokyo on Monday as he was about to end his involuntary exile in Japan, have been making full use of the Internet to document his arrival home in Shanghai’s Pudong Airport this afternoon.
Twitter users have been sharing updates using the tag #fzhenghu.
Chinese blogger Isaac Mao has posted photos to his Flickr page that capture the mood at the airport.
Feng is a pro-democracy activist who every month prints and distributes a bulletin on local rights abuses called Ducha Jianbao (“Supervision Report”). His muckraking didn’t please Chinese authorities, it would seem: Eight times since June Feng has tried to fly home to China, but was denied entry each time.
Radio Free Asia reporter Yushin Chen posted audio of an interview with Feng after he safely today landed and made his first stop—a visit to his sick mother. Perhaps it was the crowds, but everything went smoothly, Feng said in the clip. Chinese security officials, instead of throwing him out of the country, invited him to sit down for a bite to eat.