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China Censors HIV/AIDS Awareness Documentary
eldavojohn writes "Amnesty International is reporting an unusual case of censorship in which Chinese police questioned HIV/AIDS workers in China and instructed them to cancel an airing of a documentary made by Aizhixing Institute of Health Education on the disease. The director of that NGO recently left China after constant police harassment. The canceled documentary was about Tian Xi, a patient who contracted HIV by blood transfusion at age 9."
Mod me flamebait or troll, but to hell with any country in the world that deems it proper to censor their people.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Such foul language.
Its not anything new, its a way of life for them. The fact of the matter is that censorship of any kind is a well established and legal procedure used to protect the interests of the Chinese government. You may not like it but that is how it is over there.
I have no idea why this case deserves to be on slashdot. It's not really nerd news worthy.
Are you ALWAYS awake?
I would think the government would agree to distributing information purely about health issues. I wonder about the tone of the film. Is it wrapped up in criticism of the government? AI's site, of course, portrays it as totally innocent. I clicked on "Watch Documentary" but it stalled out.
It's not just one person posting that, dumbass. It's copypasta.
Are you ALWAYS so stupid?
China bans hysteria reporting. The use of a few isolated cases to make the public panic and demand very expensive 100% fixes is not good for society. It reminds me of terrorism and the Toyota break problem coverage. You would be more likely hit by lightning than a victim of these problems. Nothing can be 100% perfect so it is false reporting when media does not reveal the statistics and pretends like the isolated cases are epidemic problems.
I think you're totally wrong.
With the regression of freedoms in the western world (Anglosphere especially) , we can draw parallels with situations that've arose in our own countries. Truth be told, when authority is sufficiently potent it will attempt to sweep anything that suggests shortcomings on its part firmly under the carpet. In the end people are less informed, and in this case when we've a health matter it's obviously counter to the well-being of the population at large to suppress stories like this one. AIDS is a big problem in China; not nearly the same level as it is in sub-saharan Africa, but nevertheless it is a large public health concern on around the same level as the US or parts of Europe.
It's news because of how much we ourselves have shifted in that direction, under guise of 'stopping the terrorists' or 'protecting the children' or any other stock reason that gets trotted out every time something oppressive gets on the statute. Unlike the past where authoritarian soceity spawned from power-hungry people after a revolution, our journey in that direction is an evolutionary process; a softly, softly approach.
I've spoken with individuals from China over the years; they know perfectly well how corrupt and rotten the whole Communist party is from the honchos in Beijing to the district governors, to petty civil servants. The whole system is infested with crooks and sanctimonious hypocrites; it actually makes the British or US government seem rather decent in comparison. But even though many Chinese are aware of this, it doesn't alleviate the fact they're denied knowledge which could well help in the battle with HIV. That some person under an assumption of their own moral superiority would deny people knowledge about something like this and send some thugs over to pester the creator of the work is pretty appalling.
Under the guise of banning hysteria reporting, china bans anything that makes corrupt public officials look bad.
If you got AIDS from a blood transfusion, would you be saying "Gee, I'm so glad they didn't waste money testing that blood"?
Whereas the United States doesn't? Check WikiLeaks^^
Censorship is bad, mkay.
I think their greater concern is that because their healthcare system is government run, the panic you describe would make people question the government's competency, thereby undermining its authority. I'm curious to how China would react if the subject of the documentary got HIV through sex.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Sure, nothing can be perfect. However, medical fuck-ups are hardly uncommon. I personally know of a dozen people who were misdiagnosed or otherwise abused by the medical and dental "professions". There are many, many more incompetent doctors, nurses, and techs than you can imagine. Butchers - a lot of 'em.
The use of a few isolated cases to make the public panic and demand very expensive 100% fixes is not good for society.
A bit of Googling would tell you that HIV infections are relatively small part of China's population. BUT: blood transfusions being a significant cause. And with infections to donors too: donate blood, get HIV, can you believe that.
I read numbers ranging from thousands to tens of thousands in linked reports. That's AIDS caused in that manner. Confirmed cases and/or educated estimates. So that would not include HIV-infected people that haven't got AIDS yet (some multiple of above numbers). With the medical science being where it is, eventual AIDS cases too. That would also not include unconfirmed/unreported cases, people who are infected with HIV but don't know this yet, or recent infections due to blood transfusions. Which are probably still happening here & there.
All of this combined very newsworthy I think, and certainly more than 'a few isolated cases'. So Chinese government is definitely hurting their people by sweeping this under the carpet.
If you're familiar with the Chinese government who have been willfully ignoring and denying the high infection rate of AIDS among the rural population.
Probably by putting the blame solely on the subject, as the subject has clearly demonstrated morally questionable behaviour unfit for a Perfect Citizen.
Oh please. Your implication is surely that there is some country such as, I don't know, the USA that is just as China bad but hides it, somehow making China more admirable.
Indeed, the fact that what censorship there is in the US might be disguised or hidden is itself a sign of freedom. Otherwise the boot would come down just as it does in China. "At least they are honest about it" only means that they are more willing to use force to suppress dissent, and don't fear dissent since they can imprison or kill dissenters. Don't like it? They'll imprison or kill you too.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
TFA doesn't use the word "unusual". And censorship like this isn't at all unusual. Aids activists have been censored, threatened and killed in many countries, not just China.
Self-damage by competitors (the one-child policy, etc) IS good, though it's not PC to say that or imply we aren't all Gaia's children.
The low birth rate in what's left of the Soviet Union, and the demographic backfire awaiting the ChiComs are the sort of chickens I like to see come home to roost.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Those frikkin' Chinese will censor ANYTHING that makes them look bad. Our blood banks were tainted until what, the late 80's? We at least can talk about it.
China's health care isn't nearly as government-run as you probably think it is. As with most other aspects of the Chinese economy, it's been communist-in-name-only for decades; the health care "system" they have now is a public-private patchwork that's just as Byzantine as it is in the US.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
...the powers that be are trying to cover up corruption?
I can imagine that the communist overlords wouldn't want their state run hospital implicated in anything naughty.
Oh this is like the last time they tried to censor information about Avian Fl*COUGH*COUGH*burp*hack*COUGH*cough... :-(~~~~~~~
Of course, the film and the group behind it also advocate just compensation and support for those isolated cases who suffer because the system isn't 100%.
I'm surprised that China doesn't go with a more aggressive stance towards the problem of HIV/AIDS. (Keep in mind this was suggested to me by my great-uncle as he was dying of AIDS in the early 90's:) After having a positive test and confirming with a second more controlled test for HIV/AIDS, have the person immediately euthanized. And before any of you try the cop out of "My relation/friend had AIDS I don't want them killed," keep in mind had we done that 25 or 30 years ago it would have saved MILLIONS of lives since. The deaths from AIDS in it's entire history would have been in the hundred thousands. My uncle would gladly have been euthanized after being diagnosed had the law allowed it.
Not sure why the Chinese would want to censor AIDS info, but it's probably akin to half the the time that I would like to censor western media bullshit under the guise of info/journalism.
For example, the media in the west have essentially stopped reporting the racial backgrounds of criminals, in order to try to deceive the citizenry that the blacks and browns are responsible for 80+% of the crime in western societies.
Wouldn't be kosher with the government/media desire for importing more third world parasites.
For example, American soldiers dying in droves in Iraq/Afghan, but Uncle Sam don't want you to know.
Sucks to be a "hero" these days. Especially since they died for nothing other than so some fat greasy puppet master can loot a foreign country for profit.
The CCP will censor anything that risks portraying the CCP as incompetent or inadequate. They do this to prevent anti-CCP sentiments and uprising against the CCP and maintain stability within the country. This is a very common strategy for them. Basically, this means the CCP will censor anything it feels insecure about.
Ex-Soviet Union generally doesn't have very exceptionally low birth rate; the rates are what they are for Russia largely due to whole generation of male alcoholics and drinking-related illnesses that are killing them.
And ultimately we're all on this boat; breeding while probably already beyond the sustainable levels for the planet, in some of those places even outright using 3-4 times more resources per capita than there is available long term (without taking them from the past or borrowing from the future), won't bring anything good...most likely especially for places doing it.
One that hath name thou can not otter
the HIV-AIDS theory is full of holes anyway ...
Whatever the merits of the documentary, the name of the organization Aizhixing is extremely sly. It literally means Love, Knowledge, Action; it rhymes with Aizibing, which means AIDS. This reminds me of the wordplay in the Grass Mud Horse episode.
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
Back in 2001/2 I was working in Yunnan province in SW China. At that time the official stance by the government was that there was AIDS only in Ruili country, Yunnan: nowhere else in China. I was doing some part time stuff for Save the Children UK with their AIDS project in Ruili. They were there because they knew (we all knew) that AIDS was all over China and we were allowed to run this "pilot" program that helped the people in that county (one of the poorest in China, on the border with Burma, with a very poor part of Burma. Ruili is the point of entry for heroin coming from Burma and headed for Hong Kong and the international market.) The situation in Ruili was brutal. The government would sweep into a village and give everyone a blood test. 3 months later the "headman" of the village would be given a list of names. The headman would call a village meeting and read out the list of names: those were the people with AIDS. They, and their families immediately became dead to the village. They no longer existed and they had no rights to village schools or other resources.
So, i was preparing a training seminar for the staff at the county AIDS family support center, the only one in the entire country. There were 8 office workers. mostly being paid a few dollars a month. I showed up in Ruili that afternoon, the border with Burma was on our right as we drove down from the county airport and Burma was in sight for the drive. That night I turned off the phone (it was the first time i had had an on/off switch on the hotel phone. I found out why when 5 minutes in the room the phone rang with a gentleman offering his wife's services for very cheap and she is .... blah, blah... wives, daughters sisters, all for sale. the calls came one after another, i switched off the phone)so I missed the call from the director in Kunming, the capitol city of Yunnan province.
The next morning I showed up at the venue for the seminar and while I was getting set up I was told by hotel staff that the room had been changed. No problem. It was much bigger and nicer, OK! As I got ready the room started to fill up, and up and up. Was I in the wrong place? The director swept in with the news. The government had just announced that there was AIDS in Henan province and all over central China because of blood contamination and now the hospitals could begin giving service and support to AIDS victims. my seminar was the only/ first thing that they could do to begin on this, it became a day-long seminar for health professionals from all over China who had just appeared out of nowhere. They knew they had an AIDS problem, they had known it for a while, but none of them could do anything about it until the central government could find an excuse to admit the problem without discussing drug use, gays in China or any other social issues that "don't exist" in China.
That was almost ten years ago now, Here on the east coast of China the kids still don't use condoms, the amount of AIDS and other STDs is scary. A friend told me that at the public universities 50% or more of the girls turn tricks to make extra money to supplement the stipend from mom and dad. I'm married and fulfilled so it is only a sad commentary for me, but even though there are condoms for sale (not to mention "exciter rings with batteries" and dildos as well as lubricant) at the local convenience stores ("xiao dian") this society is still incredibly repressed and suppressed and all other kinds of pressed. They fear freedom because they know in themselves that they will personally explode if given freedom. Their reality is full of fear, a fear that controls them on every possible level. your ideas of freedom don't fit here, don't make sense here, can't work here without bloodshed.
sorry about that i've been here too long i guess.
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