Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - December 3, 2008
Lucy Hornby
Li Xige, who had taken part in AIDS awareness activities in the capital since late November, said she was escorted to her home in central Henan province on Tuesday, a day after World AIDS Day, and warned to stop talking or she would end up in jail.
Henan was at the centre of Chinese AIDS infections in the 1990s, when reckless blood-buying schemes and a lack of testing allowed the virus to spread to recipients of blood transfusions.
Five officials from her home Ningling county were now preventing her from leaving her home, she said by telephone from her home.
Li contracted HIV from a blood transfusion in 1995 and passed it to her daughters, one of whom has died of AIDS. She had previously been under house arrest for over two years because of her outspoken search for redress.
She said she went to Beijing to seek compensation and judicial action.
"I want them to take responsibility for not having told me for so many years that I had this... I've been from government offices to court to government offices again, bounced about like a ball," she told Reuters.
Discontented HIV sufferers have embarrassed the Henan government, which has often sought to block media coverage of the issue.
Last week, a crew from Belgian television channel VRT was attacked when attempting to report on AIDS villages in Henan, Tom Van de Weghe told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China.
The crew members were questioned by police and their vehicle was later pulled over by people identified as local officials from Shuangmiao village and Shangqiu county.
The journalists' tapes were damaged, equipment and money stolen and Van de Weghe was hit on the head, he told the FCCC.
Henan foreign affairs information officer Wang Yuejin told Chinese media that Van de Weghe was followed by AIDS patients and local officials, who feared the influence of his interviews of AIDS patients and asked for the footage back.
The two sides struggled after Van de Weghe refused to return the footage, Wang said, according to the Xinhua news agency website. An investigation was under way, it added.
(Additional reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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