Zeng Jinyan
Zeng Jinyan is the online progeny of the protester who blocked a column of advancing tanks during China's Tiananmen uprising in 1989. When Zeng's husband, AIDS and environmental activist Hu Jia, was detained by the Chinese government without any legal proceedings last year, Zeng, now 22, started a blog detailing her experiences and the oppressive activities of the country's secret police. Since then, her blog has been blocked in China, and she and her husband have been harassed, intimidated and subjected to round-the-clock surveillance. But she has steadfastly continued to blog, attracting an international audience with her sardonic style—and her courage. She is Tiananmen 2.0.
Blogs are by nature very personal—an intimate, often ferocious expression of the blogger's passions. This intimacy creates an unusually close bond between blogger and reader. It's why I feel so connected to Zeng, even though we live on opposite sides of the world and have never met—or even spoken to each other. By blogging truth to power, she is planting the seeds of a new—and true—cultural revolution. Let a thousand blogs bloom.
Huffington is a blogger and the founder of the Huffington Post