Inter Press Service - September 3, 2002
Antoaneta Bezlova

Dr Wan Yanhai, who disappeared in Beijing more than a week ago, had planned to travel to Canada in mid-September as the first recipient of a newly established human rights award.

The award, to be presented by Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, honours Dr Wan's courage in combating a burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis in China and spreading AIDS awareness in a country where punitive attitudes toward those living with the virus still hold sway.

Rights activists and friends of Wan say they fear he had been detained and questioned about his role as an independent voice in fighting an AIDS epidemic that Chinese authorities have only recently begun to acknowledge.

Trying to suppress any story that might reflect poorly on the country, the authorities last year banned Dr Gao Yaojie, another AIDS worker and whistleblower, from travelling to the United States to receive a humanitarian award.

She was invited to Washington to receive the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights at a ceremony attended by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Both Wan Yanhai and Gao Yaojie have been prominent in exposing a devastating AIDS epidemic in China's central province of Henan, where as many as a million people may have been infected through tainted blood sales at government clinics.

A retired paediatrician, Dr Gao has for several years been conducting a one-person care and prevention campaign in Henan.

Wan, 39 and Gao, 76, have worked independently. But in a country that restricts civil society groups, their efforts have quickly drawn the attention of the authorities.

This June, based partly on research done by Dr Wan and Dr Gao, the United Nations released a report warning that China was facing an HIV/AIDS disaster of "unimaginable" proportions and could soon have more HIV cases than any other country in the world.

In the report, titled 'AIDS in China, New Millennium -- Titanic Challenge", the U.N. forecast that 10 million people in China could have the virus by 2010. It blamed insufficient government leadership and commitment for hindering an effective response to the AIDS crisis.

As a government health official in Beijing, Wan founded China's first AIDS hotline in 1992. A year later, he was fired from his post for advocating human rights, gay and lesbian issues and promoting AIDS awareness at a time when Chinese authorities were not welcoming openness on the issue.

In 1994, Wan went on to establish the 'Aizhi' (love knowledge) discussion group and began publishing a newsletter about the extent of AIDS epidemic throughout China.

The newsletter was also one of the few media outlets in the 1990s which highlighted the connection between blood transfusions and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The Aizhi website (www.aizhi.org) has for several years documented the unfolding story in Henan, where peasants selling human plasma at government-run blood stations became infected with HIV.

In July 2002, Dr Wan's group was evicted from its offices at the premises of a private university in Beijing after the university was pressured by the government to shut the organisation down.

"Dr Wan has contributed enormously to breaking the conspiracy of silence around AIDS in China," said Richard Elliott, director of policy and research for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. "If he is in government custody, we urge his immediate release and that he be allowed to travel to Canada to receive his award."

Wan has not been heard of since Aug. 24, when he disappeared after attending a gay and lesbian film screening. His family and friends have been unable to contact him. Appeals to the Beijing Public Security Bureau by Wan's wife, Su Zhaosheng, a graduate student in Los Angeles, have so far been left without response.

Activists speculate that a possible cause for his disappearance might be the publication of an internal Henan health authority document at the Aizhi's website. According to Amnesty International, Wan's website previously published the names of people in Henan province who had died of AIDS after selling their blood to government-sanctioned blood stations.

"Many health experts fear that the AIDS epidemic in China is developing into one of the worst in the world," said Mickey Spiegel, senior researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. "It is only through the actions of people like Dr Wan that there is any hope of dealing forthrightly with this public health and human rights disaster."

While China has begun to tentatively tackle the previously taboo subject of AIDS, the government remains reluctant to acknowledge the extent of its HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Beijing held its first national AIDS conference last year behind closed doors and barred afflicted villagers from Henan from attending it.

In the strongest public criticism of Beijing's response to the epidemic so far, the U.N. report said an inadequate government response and overall lack of openness in dealing with the crisis were fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS. (END/IPS/AP/HE/HD/AB/JS/02)

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