(New York) -- China should immediately release a health official convicted for circulating a restricted government report on the Henan blood scandal, Human Rights Watch said today. The report blamed national authorities for the spread of HIV to villagers who sold their blood in the province.
A local court in Henan sentenced Ma Shiwen, deputy director of the Office of Disease Control in the Henan Health Department, to at least eight years of imprisonment for allegedly circulating the internal report to Chinese AIDS activists.
"The Chinese government is targeting honest health officials, but it has done little to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Henan," said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "China must release Ma Shiwen immediately and instead hold accountable the government officials responsible for this crisis."
In the early 1990s, Henan's state-run blood collection centers used unsafe practices that spread HIV to villagers who sold their blood. The government has said that several thousand Henan residents were infected with HIV as a result, but local activists and doctors say the number is closer to one million. Provincial police have expelled Chinese and international journalists attempting to report on the province's AIDS epidemic. Communist Party and hospital authorities have harassed and threatened outspoken doctors in Henan. In May and June, police jailed HIV-positive protestors who demanded treatment and alleged that provincial authorities had misappropriated medical funds.
Ma was arrested in August and charged with circulating state secrets by using his computer to send the report to AIDS activists in China; earlier in the year he had been arrested and released on the same charges. AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, director of the Beijing-based AIDS organization Aizhi Action, had circulated the same report in 2002. Chinese authorities detained him in August 2002, and released him a month later following international outcry over his arrest.
The report by the Henan health department blamed the national Ministry of Health, the army, illegal blood collection centers, and the lack of information about HIV/AIDS for the catastrophic spread of HIV in Henan.
China has signed and ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Article 12 of the Covenant, which guarantees the right to the highest attainable standard of health, has been authoritatively interpreted to say that "States should refrain from ... censoring, withholding or intentionally misrepresenting health-related information, as well as from preventing people's participation in health-related matters" (paragraph 34, General Comment No. 14).
Henan authorities had restricted access to the internal report that condemned government authorities for their role in the blood scandal on the grounds that it is a state secret.
Human Rights Watch pointed out that the 1996 Johannesburg Principles, a non-binding but widely recognized statement on national security, freedom of expression and access to information, states: "Everyone has the right to obtain information from public authorities, including information relating to national security. No restriction on this right may be imposed on the ground of national security unless the government can demonstrate that the restriction is prescribed by law and is necessary in a democratic society to protect a legitimate national security interest."
To date, there has been no official investigation of state responsibility for the spread of HIV in the province, and some officials linked to the scandal have been promoted.
"China should investigate the role of authorities in the Henan blood scandal and the spread of HIV," Adams said. "The government should provide adequate compensation and appropriate treatment to those persons who contracted HIV/AIDS as a result of government negligence or recklessness."
Human Rights Watch said that if the Chinese government is unable to hold such an investigation, it should authorize the United Nations or another international body to do so.
