Chinese AIDS victims detained, harassed: lawyers

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained up to eight HIV/AIDS-affected people who tried to complain to Premier Wen Jiabao about a hospital they claimed spread the HIV virus, lawyers for two of the families said on Monday.

Wen visited Hebei province next to Beijing on April 5, and some residents of Shahe in the province's south hoped to use the rare visit by the top leader to complain about a hospital whose blood transfusions they blame for spreading HIV among them and their families, said Beijing lawyer Jiang Qianyong.

Police detained 11 petitioners at the time and seven or eight remained in detention on Monday, said Jiang and another lawyer Li Chunfu, who said they represent two HIV-infected women whose husbands were held.

The lawyers said men who appeared to be local officials and plain-clothes police had tailed them since Sunday while they sought to gain the release of the two husbands.

"We came here hoping to get answers and to try to get them released," said Jiang by telephone. "But instead we've also been followed and harassed and the victims remain in detention."

The lawyers said they did not want to reveal the names of their clients.

The contention is a reminder of the continuing tensions over a blood-driven AIDS epidemic that spread in the 1990s through rural China, especially Henan province in the country's centre. HIV spread rapidly via unhygienic commercial blood-collection businesses and hospitals that failed to check blood supplies.

Wan Yanhai, who runs the Aizhixing Institute, a Beijing-based group that advocates stronger rights for China's AIDS sufferers, said local authorities feared the residents' complaints would spoil their claims that problems have been solved.

"Most have not been given compensation for what happened, and for those that did it's not nearly enough, so they've wanted to sue the hospital and responsible officials but have been blocked," said Wan.