Chinese Filmmaker Defies Censors to Expose Horrors of the Great Famine

Defying China’s increasingly intensive and brutal crackdown on dissent, filmmaker Hu Jie recently released Spark, a documentary that exposes the horrific reality of the Great Famine of 1958-1961 through interviews with survivors.

The Laogai Research Foundation Holds Press Conference at Congress

On Wednesday, November 20, 2013, The Laogai Research Foundation held a press conference at the Cannon house Office Building of the US House of Representatives on cannibalism during the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen began the press conference with a moving speech in support of advancing human rights in China, during which she described her experiences living under communist oppression as a child in Cuba.

Not Solely a Soviet Phenomenon: Policy, Famine, and Cannibalism in Mao's China

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, much archival information has been released revealing the extent of famine in Soviet-controlled Ukraine in the early 1930s. The information is stunning. Some four million people are estimated to have perished during this period of starvation, known in Ukraine as the “Holodomor.”[i]