AIDS / HIV: May 2007 Archives

By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
May 19, 2007

A young Chinese couple who have promoted a variety of delicate social and political causes were barred from leaving the country on Friday and placed under house arrest, the couple said.

The police barred Hu Jia, 33, and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, 23, from departing from Beijing on a trip to Hong Kong and several European countries, Mr. Hu said. The couple had planned to call attention to what they described as a neglect of AIDS patients and to defend other Chinese campaigners for human rights who had been prosecuted in recent months.

Mr. Hu said the police told him that he and Ms. Zeng were suspected of “endangering national security” and would be required to stay in their home under police watch for an indefinite period.

“Officials are worried that we would set off opposition to Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics,” Mr. Hu said. State security officials almost never offer any information about their activities, but the city is the venue for the 2008 Summer Games and intends to use the event to present China as a sophisticated, modern country that is open to the outside world.

In another indication of the sensitivity of the Games to China, Yang Jiechi, the country’s new foreign minister, on Friday denounced efforts in the United States to link support for Beijing’s serving as host of the Olympics to its policies in Sudan.

China has been criticized for giving strong financial and diplomatic backing to the government of Sudan, which the Bush administration and critics worldwide say has practiced genocide in its southern Darfur region while waging a war against secessionists there. “There is a handful of people who are trying to politicize the Olympic Games,” Mr. Yang told reporters. “This is against the spirit of the Games. It also runs counter to the aspirations of all the people in the world.”

A group of 108 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the Chinese government last week warning that China must use its influence with Sudan’s government to improve the situation in Darfur or face a possible backlash against its serving as host of the Games. Leading Hollywood personalities have also warned China that it could face a boycott of the Games unless it puts more pressure on Sudan.

>> Read the complete article

By Jonathan Watts | The Guardian
May 18, 2007

One of China's most prominent human rights activists has been blocked from travelling to the UK, just a day after the foreign secretary Margaret Beckett called on Beijing to allow more freedom of expression during her visit to the country.

Police detained Hu Jia, a pro-democracy campaigner and HIV-Aids activist, as he prepared to catch a flight to Europe via Hong Kong. Organisations in several European countries had invited him to speak about human rights violations in China.

Domestic security officials told him he was forbidden from leaving the country. He and his wife Zheng Jinyang were taken away for interrogation and told they were suspected of threatening state security.

In previous cases, dissidents accused of state security crimes have been arrested, charged and imprisoned.

"I will try again to change my flight. But now there are six police downstairs," Mr Hu said by telephone from his home. "The government has stopped us from going so that we would not disclose negative information about China ahead of the Olympics ... but this kind of action itself shows the dark side of the government."

Mr Hu said police asked him about critical comments he made to the media during a visit to Hong Kong earlier this year. On that trip, he showed a video of his house arrest and expressed support for other Chinese activists in jail or under house arrest.

In recent years, the public security bureau has kept him under close scrutiny. In 2006, he was kept under house arrest for 168 days and abducted for interrogation for 41 days.

He has remained defiant. Three years ago, he was detained as he attempted to lay a wreath on Tiananmen square in memory of the victims of the 1989 massacre. In Henan province, he helped to expose the blood-selling scandal that left tens - possibly hundreds - of thousands of villagers with HIV/Aids.

He is an unabashed admirer of the Dalai Lama, who Beijing accuses of "splittism". Last year, he joined a hunger-strike relay by Chinese rights activists that was the first nationally coordinated protest since 1989.

His detention came hours after Margaret Beckett gave a speech to communist cadres in Beijing in which she called for more freedom of information.

"Any healthy economy needs journalists and individuals who are free to point out problems without fear of reprisal," Ms Beckett said.

Amnesty International said Mr Hu had been stopped because he planned to speak out about human rights violations ahead of the Olympics, which the authorities fear would tarnish China's reputation.

"This is the latest example in a growing pattern of arbitrary detention and growing surveillance of human rights activists in the run up to the Olympics. China should lift the restrictions on Hu Jia and Zheng Jinyang immediately so they can continue with their peaceful human rights activities," said spokesman Mark Allison.

http://www.guardian.co.uk

By Benjamin Kang Lim | REUTERS | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
May 18, 2007

China barred a prominent AIDS and environmental activist and his wife from leaving the country on Friday, accusing them of endangering national security, the pair said.

Both have been placed under house arrest.

Plainclothes police took Hu Jia, 33, away from his Beijing home for questioning hours before he and his wife and fellow AIDS campaigner Zeng Jinyan were to board a plane bound for Hong Kong en route to nine European countries, Zeng said.

The activist was released after about five hours of questioning and told that he and his wife were suspected of "endangering national security" and barred from leaving the country, Hu said, adding that they would be under house arrest for an indefinite period.

"The authorities are worried what we say during our European tour would ignite international opposition to Beijing hosting the Olympics," Hu told Reuters. The city is hosting the 2008 Summer Games.

Hu's activism has set him on a collision course with the Communist Party, which has stepped up curbs on NGOs, the media, the Internet, lawyers, academics and civil rights campaigners to maintain its grip on power.

In Shanghai, a court on Friday jailed three hemophiliacs who say they contracted AIDS through tainted blood transfusions. The three were jailed for up to a year after they clashed with police while petitioning for better treatment, their lawyer said.

Zeng, 22, who is three months' pregnant, was recently named by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people. Hu said he was questioned about whom he and his wife met, what they did and said when they visited Hong Kong in February and March this year.

"It's laughable. They see freedom of expression as endangering national security," Hu said.

Hu said he was also interrogated about a 20-minute film he and his wife made which showed the couple under surveillance by plainclothes police.

"The film exposed human rights abuses by police with Chinese characteristics," Hu said, adding that house arrest was "illegal detention and a crime."

Hu has been a thorn in the government's side and was put under house arrest for 214 days last year.

During that time, Hu followed closely the trials of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and blind civil rights campaigner Chen Guangcheng and tipped off foreign reporters about the latest developments.

In a rare display of official tolerance, Gao was given a suspended three-year jail sentence for subversion last December.

Chen, known as a self-taught "barefoot lawyer" for providing legal advice to peasants, was jailed for four years and three months last year after exposing forced late-term abortions and other coercive birth control measures in his home province.

Hu also championed the cause of fellow AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, who was barred from leaving for the United States to receive an award until U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and Chinese President Hu Jintao intervened.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman's office, reached by telephone, had no immediate comment on Hu's house arrest.

>> Read the complete article