From New York Times
China Took Her Husband. She Was Left to Uncover His Secret Cause.
By Vivian Wang
It wasn’t as if Bei Zhenying didn’t know that her husband was unusual, or even that he had some secrets.
He was a talented computer programmer, and she fell for his inquisitive intelligence and playfulness when they met at university in Shanghai. But he was also proudly nonconformist — refusing to use social media or buy new clothes — and intensely private, disappearing into his study to do work he wouldn’t discuss...
It was precisely that mix of bravado and erudition that had made Program Think an “online legend,” said Xiao Qiang, a researcher on internet freedom at the University of California, Berkeley. In the hundreds of comments under each post, fans compared the author to Julian Assange, or the hero of “V for Vendetta,” the graphic novel about a masked anti-totalitarian vigilante.
Readers were awed that “there’s such a person in China that can challenge the Chinese authorities — mentally, politically and morally,” Mr. Xiao said...
Xiao Qiang is the founder and editor-in-chief of the China Digital Times and a research scientist at the School of Information.
