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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
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.
The day we start accepting it is the way we lose.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the US, life is considered so "precious" that we mandate everyone live in agony for as long as possible no matter the condition.
I thought that the public health care in US is in such a state, that this doesn't happen? Who is mandated to pay for this kind of extended care?
Hmm, or was it so that there's this class of people who are considered too rich to have free health care, but too poor to insure themselves or pay for it themselves? So is it like, if you're poor enough, government will keep you alive as long as you live, and if you're rich enough, your insurance or your family will keep you alive. But if you're in the between, then you're free to rot to death at home?
Despite the tone of text above, I'm actually really curious. How is for example cancer or type 1 diabetes diagnosis and treatment in the US, for the poor, the middle class and the rich?