China detains AIDS campaigner

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China detains AIDS campaigner

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BEIJING: A retired Chinese doctor acclaimed for helping people with
AIDS has been placed under house arrest to stop her from traveling to
an awards ceremony in the United States sponsored by a group connected
to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a friend said on Monday.

Dr. Gao Yaojie has been confined to her apartment in the central
Chinese city of Zhengzhou since Thursday, according to her friend, Hu
Jia, himself a well-known AIDS advocate. Friends and family members who
have tried to visit Gao found police officers outside her apartment, Hu
said. The 79-year-old physician apparently is being confined alone.

"Now, her phone is cut off," said Hu, who has spoken to members of
Gao's family. "She can't even call out for help if something goes
wrong."

Gao was notified last October that she would be honored by the Vital
Voices Global Partnership, a non-profit group that promotes female
empowerment. The group's annual banquet is March 14 in Washington, and
Gao is among honorees from around the world. Clinton is an honorary
co-chair of the group, along with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison,
Republican of Texas.

Gao was supposed to fly to Beijing on Sunday for an appointment at
the U.S. Embassy on Monday to process a travel visa. But Susan
Stevenson, a spokesperson at the embassy, confirmed that Gao missed her
appointment.

"We have raised Dr. Gao's case with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Stevenson said.

Gao gained international attention after she helped expose a
blood-selling program in central China that infected tens of thousands
of farmers with HIV during the 1990s. She spent years traveling to
villages in her native Henan Province, handing out information about
AIDS, helping children orphaned by the disease and dispensing medicine.
She is among a handful of advocates whose work is credited with helping
to force the Chinese government to confront the spread of HIV.

Her work also has made her a marked woman, at times. Until a few years ago, security agents from Henan often followed her.

In past interviews, she has said that she assumed her telephone is
tapped. In 2001, she was forbidden from going abroad to receive an
international award for her work on AIDS.

More recently, though, the pressure has eased, a shift that
coincided with more open central government attitudes toward AIDS. She
has been allowed to speak at medical conferences and has been regularly
profiled in the Chinese media.

However, officials in Henan Province apparently did not want her to
attend such a prominent international event. "They tried to persuade
her not to go to America and meet Hillary Clinton," Hu said. "She
refused, and then the police appeared."

A spokesman with the Zhengzhou Public Security Bureau declined to
comment on the case and referred any questions to the Henan Province
government. A provincial spokesman said: "I don't know about this. I
have no knowledge of it."