BEIJING, Aug 5 (AFP) - A group of top US scholars have sent an open letter to Premier Wen Jiabao criticising the way China is handling its looming AIDS crisis, as international pressure builds for change.
The 41 signatories, working with New York-based China AIDS Solidarity Network, slammed China for beating and arresting HIV-sufferers after they had asked for better treatment.
China is shooting itself in the foot by detaining people advocating improved policies on dealing with AIDS, said the letter, signed by academics from prestigious centers of learning, such as the Harvard Medical School.
"The harassment of people with HIV/AIDS and their advocates diminishes China's ability to halt its AIDS epidemic, which is advancing rapidly and threatens to rival the epidemics in Africa and India in the near future," it said.
The letter came in response to the arrest of several residents of Xiongqiao village in central China's Henan province after they had demanded the establishment of a hospital.
In an incident first reported by AFP, local authorities reacted violently, sending more than 500 police officers and other club-wielding men to the village, smashing TV sets and windows and beating up residents.
Of the 13 farmers who were arrested in the attack, seven remain in custody more than a month later, including five HIV sufferers, according to the open letter.
The incident is the most extreme known case of a police crackdown on farmers demanding more government help after being devastated by an AIDS outbreak.
"It is outrageous that people with AIDS are being beaten and jailed for asking for medical care," said Mark Milano, a spokesman for the New York-based solidarity network.
Xiongqiao is just one of a large number of Henan villages where farmers contracted the HIV virus after they sold blood at unsanitary government-approved blood stations beginning in the mid-1980s.
According to United Nations estimates from last year, China had up to 1.5 million HIV carriers, but many experts are worried that the real figure could already be much higher.
The New York solidarity network said as many as two million villagers in Henan alone contracted the virus by selling their blood.
The open letter to Wen comes after severe criticism of China's policies on AIDS from several rights groups.
Last month, London-based rights group Amnesty International expressed concerns over the Henan beatings and urged a full and public report on how the people contracted the disease.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said incidents like detention indicated there was a toughening of approach even as China actively sought international funding to fight AIDS.
China has also been under increasing global pressure to deal more effectively with its AIDS crisis or face disaster.
In October, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warned China that it "stands on the brink of an explosive AIDS epidemic" and must act immediately to halt the potential catastrophe.
UN officials have also warned that under current trends, and in the absence of effective counter-measures, China could have 10 million people with HIV by the year 2010, giving it the largest population with the virus in the world.
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