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China frees AIDS activist
HONG KONG, China -- China has released a leading AIDS activist from almost a month of detention after he confessed to leaking official secrets, state-run media reported. Wan Yanhai, a former Chinese Health Ministry official and one of China's most prominent AIDS campaigners, was freed after he admitted breaking the law and agreed to assist in investigations, Xinhua news agency quoted a government spokesman as saying. Xinhua said Wan illegally obtained classified documents and sent them to people, media and Web sites overseas. China never confirmed Wan's detention on August 25 and his disappearance caused a wave of concern among the media, international health and rights groups as well as his family. Speaking to The Associated Press news agency, Wan said he was in good health, had not been abused and was freed after admitting it was a "mistake" to publish a government report on the spread of AIDS in China's central Henan province. "It's not too convenient for me to say right now [the terms of release]. However, nothing has happened that will affect my work," Wan told the Associated Press. Wan added he was investigated because he publicized and distributed a report on AIDS in Henan, where health authorities have been accused of covering up the spread of the virus, the Associated Press report said. Henan outbreak
The AIDS campaigner said he was unaware that publishing the report on the Internet was illegal but did not say whether he had been charged with any crimes. China has only recently been releasing information on AIDS after denying for years it was a problem. Earlier this month, China's Health Ministry said it expects the communist nation to have one million people diagnosed with AIDS by the end of the year. Without adequate preventative measures, that figure could balloon out to 10 million by the end of the decade, the ministry added. In Henan, up to 500,000 peasants in the poverty-stricken province are believed to be infected with the HIV virus -- or are already dying from AIDS -- after they gave blood in a government-sponsored blood-for-money program, according to reports. Over the past decade, local authorities encouraged the villagers of Henan to sell their blood so the plasma could be marketed in pharmaceutical products well beyond the province.
Unsanitary practices are believed to have resulted in the spread of the HIV virus, and now, whole families and villages are dying from AIDS. HarassmentChinese authorities have been cracking down on those speaking out about the virus and friends and family say Wan was detained because of his efforts to publicize the episode. Wan's advocacy group had been the focus of official harassment for some time, being ordered to vacate its office in Beijing's university district earlier this year. According to reports from travelers to the Henan region, there is little medial care available to the sick, with authorities not acknowledging what has happened. And that may be just the tip of an iceberg in rapidly changing China. There is an explosion of sex on a commercial level but discussion of sexual matters is still largely taboo, particularly in relation to the gay community. -- CNN's Senior Asia Correspondent Mike Chinoy contributed to this story
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