Chinese AIDS Activist Put Under House Arrest
February 6, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Chinese government has put Gao Yaojie, a retired Chinese doctor who helped expose blood-buying schemes that infected thousands of people with HIV, under house arrest to stop her from traveling to Washington to be honored by a charity backed by Sen. Hillary Clinton, reports the Associated Press.
Dr. Gao, who is in her 80s, is among China’s most visible AIDS activists. She has received numerous awards for her efforts a decade ago to alert people in her home province of Henan, in eastern China, to an AIDS epidemic that was being spread by tainted blood transfusions.
Dr. Gao was warned by Henan authorities not to attend the Vital Voices Global Partnership awards ceremony next month, but she refused to comply, according Hu Jia, an AIDS activist in Beijing and a friend of Dr. Gao’s.
Zhengzhou city authorities put Dr. Gao under house arrest February 1 ahead of a planned trip to Beijing February 4 to apply for a U.S. visa.
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