Posted on December 1st, 2010
Today, SECTION27, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Gay and Lesbian Equality Project and COSATU hosted a joint rally outside the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria to demand the immediate release of Tian Xi and other human rights defenders wrongly imprisoned in China. Tian Xi, an AIDS and human rights activist who has been imprisoned since 6 August 2010, was infected with HIV as a child during a surgical operation – a common event in China at the time – and has been actively campaigning for the rights of people so infected to receive compensation from the Chinese government.
Representatives from TAC and SECTION27 handed over a joint statement to an official at the embassy.
Additionally, SECTION27, TAC and COSATU also handed over a memorandum to UNAIDS to encourage them to pressure the Chinese government to release Tian Xi.
Both statements are repeated below:
_____________________________________________________________________________________ 1 December 2010
Premier Wen Jiabao
c/o His Excellency Zhong Jianhua
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to South Africa
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
972 Pretorius Street, Arcadia
Pretoria
Call for the immediate release of AIDS and human rights activist, Tian Xi, and other Chinese human rights defenders
Dear Premier Wen Jiabao
We are civil society organisations fighting for social justice and South Africa’s largest trade union federation. We represent millions of people in South Africa. But we are also organisations that promote the rights of the poor to access treatment for HIV infection, promote constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and social and economic justice, and believe in solidarity between people both in South Africa and internationally.
Today is World AIDS day 2010. This is a day of international solidarity with people living with HIV and of remembrance for those who have died of AIDS. We regret that we have had to gather outside your country’s embassy in South Africa as part of a global campaign to call for the immediate release of Mr Tian Xi and other AIDS activists from prison, and for adequate compensation for ten thousands of poor and rural people in your country who were infected with HIV as a result of a contaminated blood supply in the 1990s.
Mr Xi was a child when he received contaminated blood in an operation. He is not alone: in the 1990s, tens of thousands of people in China’s central plains were infected with HIV and other pathogens through state-sponsored blood sales and hospital blood transfusions that were contaminated. No-one has been held to account. While thousands of families have petitioned for compensation, only a few have received small settlements and many have been refused. China’s courts currently refuse to accept lawsuits on these cases.
Mr Tian Xi has been detained in Henan province without a formal sentence since August 6, 2010. We believe he is in prison solely because of his ongoing campaign to petition your government to compensate him and tens of thousands of others infected with HIV in the 1990s through the contaminated national blood supply.
We believe that China should be showing leadership and compassion on these issues. China is a net recipient of money from the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), as well as a signatory to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) 2001 Declaration of Commitment. Respect for human rights is a principle accepted by both the GFATM and the United Nations.
But, in addition, Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution states that “[c]itizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” Further, the Chinese government’s national human rights plan 2009-2010 reiterates this, stating as follows:
In the period 2009-2010, China will continue to strengthen work to improve democracy and the rule of law, improving systems for democracy, diversifying the forms of democracy and expanding the channels of democracy, strengthening the protection of civil rights in the execution of administrative laws and in judicial practices, and raising the level of ensuring people’s civil and political rights.
We are therefore concerned that the Chinese government is failing to meet its own constitutional obligations and stated commitments in relation to civil liberty and human rights. We therefore appeal to the Chinese government to adopt an attitude of respect for human rights, and in particular to comply with your own Constitution and national human rights action plan. We were pleased to hear of the establishment of the Beijing Red Ribbon Forum on Human Rights (RRF) as a formal platform for government and civil society to work on issues of HIV/AIDS and human rights. Indeed we believe Mr Xi attended the first meeting of the RRF in July 2010, only a month before his detention.
We restate our call for the immediate release of Tian Xi, as well as other human rights activists including Hu Jia, Liu Xiabo and many others who are in prison and whose only crime is to defend and promote human rights.
Yours sincerely
| Nonkosi Khumalo | Jonathan Berger | Patrick Craven |
| TAC | SECTION27 | COSATU |
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