- HONG KONG -- Authorities
in the central Chinese province of Henan are preparing a prison facility
in at least one location for AIDS patients who cause trouble by complaining
about their treatment at the hands of local officials, a recent report
by RFA's Mandarin service has revealed.
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- One facility was being built at Ningling County, near
the city of Shangqiu, local sources said.
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- "They haven't built any new special prison but have
moved prisoners to other places and will use the vacated cells as a detention
center to lock up AIDS patients," an anonymous source inside a similar
nearby prison told RFA reporter Fang Yuan.
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- "This is being done quietly. It is said that the
detention center has been staffed with doctors and equipped with a pharmacy,"
the source, at Shangcai county prison, said.
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- "AIDS patients who are alleged to have violated
law and discipline will be locked up there," he told RFA.
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- List of troublemakers
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- Sources said HIV/AIDS patients who had been to Beijing
to register complaints over official mistreatment with higher authorities
would be targeted, but those who frequently visited local authorities were
also at risk of incarceration.
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- During the recent annual session of China's parliament
in March, the Shangqiu municipal Communist Party Secretary ordered all
county officials to submit lists of local HIV/AIDS patients who had already
been to Beijing, so they could be prevented from traveling to Beijing and
embarassing their local authorities during the top-level meeting, a source
inside the prison said.
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- Official documents showed that local police officers
had already been taken on incognito visits in unmarked cars to view the
facility, during a recent law enforcement conference in the area, a source
told RFA.
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- There are also fears that a second facility may be being
prepared elsewhere in Henan, which was severely hit by an HIV/AIDS epidemic
following a wave of blood-selling by poor rural communities during the
1980s and 1990s.
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- An official on duty at the Ningling county government
denied the reports.
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- Impending crackdown likely
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- "How can it be a prison for AIDS patients? How can
this happen in todayís society, where we have the rule of law? Those
who have contracted AIDS are patients. They have not broken the law,"
he said.
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- "There are AIDS patients all over the area. Who
would dare to lock them up? What is under construction is a hospital for
AIDS patients...No, it is for patients who have contracted AIDS, sorry,
I mean infectious diseases."
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- One of China's most prominent social activists, Hu Jia,
who has a special interest in the plight of HIV/AIDS sufferers, said he
had confirmed that the facility at Ningling was indeed to be used as a
prison, through several reliable channels.
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- "Such a place will never have a signboard hung at
its entrance for fear of community resentment. But we have verified this
case through various channels," Hu told RFA.
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- He said one method used to verify the story was a phone
call to a senior police officer at Sui county, also in the Shangqiu area.
That officer appeared to warn the caller of an impending crackdown.
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- AIDS patient urged to flee
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- "The call was placed by a local AIDS patient. He
said bluntly to the police officer that it was the government that asked
him and others to sell blood and, as a result, they were infected,"
Hu said.
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- "He asked the officer to tell him where they would
be locked up so that their families would be able to take food to them.
The officer refused to disclose the exact location of the prison but advised
him to run away and go into hiding," he added.
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- China's official Xinhua news agency said Henan was planning
a raft of new measures for AIDS patients in the province, where official
records show 25,036 people have been confirmed HIV-positive, with 11,815
cases of full-blown AIDS by the end of 2004.
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- Henan spent 334 million yuan (U.S.$40.2 million) last
year in free medical treatment, education for orphans of AIDS patients,
and care of the elderly in the province's 38 worst-hit villages, the agency
said.
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- - Original reporting in Mandarin by Fang Yuan. RFA Mandarin
service director: Jennifer Chou. Online production by the Mandarin Web
team and Luisetta Mudie.
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