Prominent Chinese Aids Activist missing

[J.R.E.]

Prominent Chinese AIDS activist missing By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer
Sat Nov 25, 6:11 PM ET
 


BEIJING - A Chinese      "  AIDS activist who was organizing a symposium to help people with the disease fight for their legal rights has gone missing after meeting with police, his advocacy group said Saturday.


 
Although Beijing launched a more open and energetic fight against AIDS two years ago, the apparent disappearance of the activist, Wan Yanhai, highlights the government's lingering antipathy toward its more outspoken critics.

Four police officers showed up at the Beijing offices of the AIDS advocacy group Aizhi on Friday and questioned Wan for much of the day, the group said on its Web site.

With police still present, Wan ordered colleagues to cancel a symposium on AIDS, blood safety and legal rights that had been scheduled for Sunday, the group's statement said.

Wan spoke briefly with a colleague Friday evening on his cell phone but has not been heard from since, the statement said.

"The colleague asked Wan Yanhai his whereabouts, and Wan Yanhai replied that he was being questioned. Since then, his colleagues and family have lost contact with Wan Yanhai," the group said. Wan's phone has been switched off.

Wan has been one of China's most dogged campaigners for AIDS awareness and effective public health policies. He has frequently angered the Communist government, which had long ignored the spread of the disease. Wan has also drawn harassment from the police.

The government acknowledges the spread of AIDS is accelerating. The Health Ministry reported days ago that over the first 10 months of this year the number of reported        HIV and AIDS cases rose nearly 30 percent, to 183,733, from 144,089 at the end of last year.

Health experts say actual cases are likely to be four to five times the reported figure.

Though it was not immediately clear what prompted police to question Wan, initial signs pointed to the now-canceled symposium on Sunday.

Wan's colleagues at Aizhi said more than 60 people, some of them AIDS sufferers and their families, were invited to the symposium, one of the activities marking World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Twice on Friday while being questioned, Wan told his colleagues to be sure any participants who had come to Beijing returned home, the Aizhi statement said.

"Whether this is or isn't sensitive is not by our definition. It's theirs," said Wang Lixuan of Aizhi. A colleague, who refused to disclose her name, said the group held a similar symposium a year ago before AIDS day.

In a sign that organizers were aware of possible trouble, they did not publicize the symposium's location, but told participants to come to the Aizhi office for details.

The event's topics — blood supply safety and legal rights — touch on issues of government responsibility. Several localized AIDS epidemics in China were caused by tainted blood supplies and unsanitary transfusions, and victims have struggled to win compensation from the state health system.

Throughout the 1990s, the government treated the disease with silence and ineffective policies, and Wan was a thorn in its side throughout. He was fired from a Health Ministry job in 1994 after publicly calling for AIDS education and gay rights.

He founded the Aizhi group later that year, and has since been occasionally detained. His publicizing of an epidemic from blood transfusions, in Henan province, landed him in detention for two months in 2002."

Ray

[J.R.E.]

China police ban hemophilia forum: source Sat Nov 25, 1:16 PM ET
 


SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese police have banned a conference involving hemophiliac activists and are believed to be holding one of the main organizers for questioning, a source close to the organizers said on Saturday.

 
The conference, "Blood safety,        AIDS and Human Rights," was organized by the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education and was to take place in Beijing on Saturday, the source said.

Chinese authorities are wary of organizations they cannot directly control, such as independent activist groups, and were slow to acknowledge the existence of an epidemic of AIDS, which still carries a political and social stigma in China.

Police went to the building housing the Aizhixing Institute on Friday and asked its director, Wan Yanhai, to speak to them downstairs, the source said. Wan then phoned the institute and asked staff to cancel the conference.

Wan did not return to the institute and cannot be reached on his cellphone, the source said. "The police told him to go and speak to them and he hasn't come back since -- there's no way to contact him," the source said.

A worker at the institute, who gave her surname as Wang, said "So far, we don't have any information about the whereabouts of Wan Yanhai since he left the office."

Wang said the institute had asked a lawyer to request an official explanation and details of Wan's whereabouts.

A Beijing district police official contacted by Reuters said "We are not aware of the forum or of Wan's whereabouts ... Maybe it was not approved by higher authorities at the Public Security Bureau or by the cultural affairs office."

The government's slowness to acknowledge the existence of the AIDS epidemic contributed to its spread in China, especially in the central province of Henan, where in the 1990s millions of people sold blood to unsanitary clinics.

In April, police in the Chinese financial hub Shanghai broke up a news conference by a group of hemophiliacs who say they contracted        HIV/AIDS through contaminated blood transfusions.

[rk@aids-write.org]

from aids-write:

there are also unconfirmed reports of other chinese aids activists who have been jailed by chinese authorities. awo's citizen journalist fred bradford writes:


    The story I send about Wan Yan Hai is critical….
    Wan has agitated the Chinese government to open up information about AIDS.
    He’s been thrown into jail there before.
    Wan has done research at ONE and is a friend of several AIDS activists here in town and also San Francisco (as well as around the U.S.)
    We must get this information out in order to embarrass the Chinese government. (A very difficult thing to do.)

    —Fred


ALERT: wan yanhai, chinese aids acitivist, missing after “meeting” with chinese police [11-25]; earlier story [10-24] & bios (505)

http://aids-write.org/?p=395

“They banned our organization and sealed up all our desks and work materials in the office,” Chang said of the 200-member group, adding, “They also threatened me by saying that if I did not follow their instructions, I would be detained” (Reuters, 10/19). HIV/AIDS advocate Wan Yanhai said the group is “the first AIDS NGO that the government has officially shut down,” adding, “In China, the government … has lots of doubts about NGOs and fears those which have an independent and critical stance.” Tu Erdi, a Xinjiang Civil Affairs Bureau official, confirmed the closing, adding, “Several departments are investigating this group at the moment … they have no licenses, so according to government rules, it should be categorized as an illegal operation” (AFP/Sunday Times, 10/19).

earllier disappearance:

Dr. Wan Yanhai, who disappeared in Beijing on August 24th, 2002, was in the custody of the “State Custody Bureau.” According to the article, Dr. Wan, who had been “followed and harassed by security officials all summer, had been taken into custody because he had “posted a classified document prepared by the Henan Health Bureau on the Internet in late August, showing that officials there were well aware of a serious HIV problem as early as 1995.”

Dr. Wan Yanhai exposed seven years of governmental secrecy while the practice of blood-selling by poor farmers continued. Farmers sold their own blood with the full knowledge of the government, for money, because they were desperately poor. The Government knew that the blood being collected was “drawn” by using communal needles. The “good blood” was used for blood products, while unwanted blood was re-injected back into the donors - thereby spreading the disease to innocent Chinese civilians.

[rk@aids-write.org]

awo's citizen journalist fred bradford reports: wan yanhai returned; 4 chinese aids activists remain in custody (509)

http://aids-write.org/?p=400

lyr—

Four members of the hemophiliacs association Kong Delin are still in custody.

—fred

The director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education Wan Yanhai was taken away by the police authorities for a talk on 24 November 2006. He finally returned to the office today, 27 November, after three days, and resumed normal work. So far, the work of Aizhixing Institute has been carried out in normal conditions. We want to express our gratitude to all social spheres for supporting both Aizhixing and Wan Yanhai.

The main reason why the authorities were looking for Wan Yanhai on this occasion are related to the conference regarding victims of infection through blood transfusion organized by Aizhixing and which was planned to be held in Beijing between 25-30 November.

The conference was postponed in the morning of 24 November.

Wan Yanhai has expressed his intention to actively seek for the government’s support and understanding in the future so as to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

At the same time, he also hopes the relevant health departments will pay attention to the requests of thousands of people infected by blood transfusion and provide them with compensation, treatment and care.

Finally, we hope the Shanghai police authorities will promptly release the well known leader of the hemophiliacs association Kong Delin as well as the other three hemophiliacs held under detention.

Wan Yan Hai, Director
Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education