Dissident Sleuth's Life on the Edge

The experience did not dampen his idealism. Later, as a university student in Changsha, the capital of his native Hunan province, Mr Lu became a local leader of the 1989 protests which culminated with the Tiananmen Square massacre. That cost him a master's degree in computer science when he was thrown out of the Central Southern University of Technology for having participated in the demonstrations, just six months before he was due to finish his studies.

When he was detained again in 1993, for his involvement with the pro-democracy dissidents' network, Mr Lu says he escaped from the hospital where he was held in Hunan and was smuggled into Hong Kong aboard a boat. British authorities allowed him to settle as a political refugee.

Since then, Mr Lu has worked to build his centre into a leading source of alternative information on mainland affairs for Hong Kong and international media, academics and diplomats. It is essentially a one-man operation run from a small room above his flat in Hung Hom, relying on a pager, fixed-line telephone, mobile phone, television, computer and fax machine for gathering information and for sending out his twice-daily press releases.

His reports - such as those revealing the arrests of Falun Gong practitioners, detention of various Chinese-American academics on spying charges, developments in the dissidents' network and inside information on investigations into explosions such as the Shijiazhuang blasts in March which killed 108 people - have raised the profile of the centre. The reports have also made him a thorn in the side of mainland authorities. Mr Lu has learned that a municipal court in Jinan city, Shangdong province, branded his centre a hostile foreign organisation.

The ruling was made in April last year while the court was considering the appeal of a Jinan dissident, Che Hongnian, 42, who had been sentenced without trial to spend three years in a labour camp. Mr Che, who had been imprisoned for writing two letters to Voice of America's Hong Kong office - which is also listed as a hostile organisation - was only released last month, allowing Mr Lu to reveal details of the case.

The court's ruling said the Public Security Bureau had intercepted the letters to the radio station's bureau seeking the address and contact number for Mr Lu's centre. It labelled the centre a 'foreign organisation' and said Mr Che's behaviour was 'endangering state security' with an aim of overthrowing the central Government by liaising with foreign organisations. Mr Lu now worries the ruling might oblige the SAR Government to declare his centre illegal once it passes anti-subversion laws, as required under Article 23 of the Basic Law. The mini-constitution requires Hong Kong to enact its own laws to prohibit acts of treason, sedition or subversion against the central Government, as well as the theft of state secrets.

There are signs the administration has been dragging its feet on introducing such laws. In December, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said the Government would legislate 'in due course', and Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has indicated no timetable has been fixed. In the meantime, Mr Lu remains free to continue his activities. When asked whether it intended to take action against Mr Lu or his organisation following the mainland court case, the Security Bureau said: 'Individuals can freely operate in Hong Kong as long as they abide by Hong Kong laws.'

Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai says the mainland court's views should not affect Mr Lu's status. He says the information provided by Mr Lu's centre is valuable to China watchers and the outside world. But the lack of transparency on the mainland means some information can be misleading.

Mr Lu says he always tries to doublecheck information with a variety of sources. He is regularly quoted as a source by newspapers, radio and television stations, and news agencies. Hong Kong Journalists' Association chairman Mak Yin-ting says she finds 70 to 80 per cent of the material supplied by Mr Lu to be accurate.

The price of operating as a dissident in the SAR after 1997 has been high for Mr Lu. He says he was sacked from a training company when the boss became worried Mr Lu's activities might endanger his business opportunities over the border. At other jobs, employers worried about the constant phone calls made and received by Mr Lu as he monitored affairs on the mainland.

Now, he survives with an annual US$10,000 (about HK$79,000) grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by the US Congress, and various donations, particularly from Europe. He says he suffers routine harassment from mainland security authorities. And he believes agents from the Ministry of State Security telephone him during the middle of the night simply to disturb him. 'Sometimes they call at three or four in the morning. It wakes me, and then I cannot go back to sleep.'

The harassment, he says, is not as bad as in 1999, when he first started documenting Beijing's crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners. Then, his fixed-line telephone was inundated with a call every minute and thousands of pages of faxes with articles from the People's Daily or blank pages were sent. Mr Lu says the Ministry of State Security in Guangzhou used two computers to tie up his phone and fax.

'I obtained some documents and got in touch with them. I told them that if they continued with the phone calls, I would release the information. They stopped it then.' He refuses to disclose the nature of the documents but says he might release them later.

Mr Lu also appears to have been personally affected by his role as a dissident, coming across to many as a nervous person. During a 90-minute interview, he often rambled in response to questions. The HKJA's Ms Mak says she has met many mainland dissidents who have been monitored and followed by authorities and who have shown similar behaviour patterns to Mr Lu.

Mr Lu is reluctant to disclose his mobile-phone number and says he changes it every month to minimise the chances of it being tapped by authorities. He wants to stay in Hong Kong because so much information about mainland affairs can be obtained here and telecommunications links across the border are convenient.

Mr Lu employs unusual methods to extract information from officials. He says he used false names and identities while making telephone calls to officials, claiming to be a relative of a victim or from a politician's office or an assistant to a member of the National People's Congress.

Ms Mak says such subterfuge is inappropriate in journalism, even though some reporters might employ similar tactics to obtain information. 'But Frank is not a journalist,' she says, preferring to describe him as a dissident who is 'very devoted to certain kinds of news'.