I Was Lucky Social Media Activist on His Journey to Escape From China

As he trekked through the mountains on China's border with Laos, Lu Yuyu felt exhausted. His companions were smugglers to whom he had paid 15,000 yuan (£1,622) to help him escape China, and they forced him to keep going until he could be delivered to two men and a scooter for the last few hours.

- Amy Hawkins

His daring escape from China in May last year involved a great deal of luck. Other dissidents have tried and failed; some have made it to Laos but have been sent back to China. From Laos, Lu headed to a UN refugee agency office in Thailand where he claimed asylum in Canada, and has since been reunited with his wife and cat, a tabby called Anthony. "I was very lucky to get out of China," Lu says from his new home in Calgary.

He is part of a relatively new breed of Chinese activists who use social media to document and publicize unrest in China – a task the Chinese authorities used to do. Statistics published by the ministry of public security showed such "mass incidents" rose every year between 1993 and 2005 – the year the government stopped publishing data – when the tally hit 87,000.