On July 18, 2006, Mrs. Li Xige, an HIV/AIDS activist from Ningling County, Henan Province, and director of the NGO Healthy Happy Home (Kanglejia), was stopped along with seven other women, upon their arrival in Beijing, by dozens of policemen and local government officials from Ningling County, who were in a bus owned by the Ministry of Health.
These women had come to Beijing in order to call on the Ministry of Health to look into their demands for fair compensation by the local government for their HIV infection. The women became HIV positive as a result of blood transfusions in state-run hospitals, in most cases when giving birth by caesarean between 1993 and 2001.
The eight women were immediately taken back to Ningling and questioned on their arrival in the city on July 20. Five women were released shortly afterwards, while Mrs. Li Xige and two other women, Ms. Wang and Ms. Zhang, were charged with “gathering people to assault a state organ” (Article 290 of the Chinese Criminal Code) after they refused to disclose details of their complaints to the Ministry. Ms. Wang and Ms. Zhang were released on bail for medical reasons on July 27 and August 2, 2006.
On August 11, 2006, Mrs. Li Xige was released on bail after 21 days in detention. However, since August 12, 2006, she has remained under surveillance and has not been allowed to leave town.
Healthy Happy Home provides a support network to more than 40 local women and 10 children who became infected through blood transfusions in state-run hospitals. The local court has repeatedly refused to investigate their allegations and police have repeatedly detained them when they have tried to petition authorities.
Furthermore, since July 17, 2006, Mr. Hu Jia, a prominent activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Shanghai and co-founder and former director of the Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, has not been allowed to go out of his house even for a walk in the housing compound where he lives. In addition, his wife Mrs. Zeng Jinyan has been followed and restricted in her movement. Police told them that this was to prevent them from going to Linyi, Shandong, to protest against the detention of Mr. Chen Guangcheng[1], a lawyer who denounced the extensive violence employed by the authorities of Linyi in implementing the birth planning policy in 2004-2005. Mrs. Zeng Jinyan has appealed to the mayor of Beijing about ending this illegal treatment, but has received no reply.
Mr. Hu Jia, who also co-founded Loving Source, an organisation helping children who have lost their parents to AIDS-related illnesses, has been detained on numerous occasions in the past in connection with his activities. In particular, he was detained without charge from February 16 to March 28, 2006, following protest hunger strikes by human rights activists and lawyers against beatings and unlawful detention of human rights activists. During his detention, the authorities repeatedly denied knowledge of Mr. Hu’s whereabouts, and denied him the right to have access to the medication he requires to treat Hepatitis B.
In April 2005, Mr. Hu Jia had been detained for a week without charge and on 30 August 2005, he had been violently beaten by national security police officers in a suburb, east of Beijing Tongzhou, after his arrival in the capital with a group of persons from Henan province suffering from AIDS (See Observatory 2005 Annual Report).
The Observatory stresses that Chinese activists are at permanent risk of harassment, imprisonment or assault by police or by criminals hired by local officials, for denouncing violations of the rights of persons suffering from AIDS, notably in rural China. They also have to face bureaucratic obstacles when they seek to register their NGOs.
The Observatory calls upon the Chinese authorities to guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of all Chinese human rights defenders as well as of their relatives, and to put an end to any kind of harassment against them.
The Observatory also urges the Chinese authorities to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually or collectively, to promote the protection and fulfilment of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, as well as article 12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually or in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”.
More generally, the Observatory urge the authorities to guarantee the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other international human rights instruments ratified by China, all the more that the People’s Republic of China was elected on May 9, 2006 as a member of the new United Nations Human Rights Council.
For more information, please contact :
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[1] See Observatory Open Letter to the authorities, July 11, 2006, and Observatory Urgent Appeal CHN 006/0706/OBS 087, issued on July 21, 2006.