China Censors HIV/AIDS Awareness Documentary 120
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."
Fuck China (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod me flamebait or troll, but to hell with any country in the world that deems it proper to censor their people.
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I'm sure what you meant to say was "to hell with any country that is open about censorship, and doesn't hide behind the media and state secrets".
The degree of open censorship within a country is proportional to the number of bullets that country is willing to use to enforce its censorship. So its not really a positive that they don't bother to hide it.
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US citizens bought enough guns in three months to supply every soldier in China and India with a rifle and enough ammunition in one month to have them shoot that rifle around 450 times.
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http://www.ammoland.com/2009/04/22/usa-buys-enough-guns-in-3-months-to-outfit-the-entire-chinese-and-indian-army/ [ammoland.com]
Sorry, forgot the URL
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And the US government bought enough big guns and heavy artillery to make sure they could quell any insurrection by US citizens wielding said guns 100x over.
What could in theory cause such an insurrection? Dissatisfaction with US government policies, and lack of adequate representation of workers and small business, while adopting adverse pro-government, pro-corporation, pro-union socialist-fascist policies, and intentionally taking no action against crisis situations such as BP oil spell, in attempt to
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Slow inexorable change in how government treats it citizens with not a lot of pain or suffering on the part of the citizens just discomfort. It's been happening for a long time. It really does not matter who is in charge as it is a natural function of government to acquire power. We may be past the point where citizens can make any sort of effective reduction in that power. I do not know how long it will take but I will most likely be to old or already dead when it happens.
Re:Fuck China (Score:5, Insightful)
mod parent up (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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Using force to support censorship *IS* more admirable than using due process of law.
Let me make this clear. Censorship is always, unconditionally, evil. No exceptions. Now--this is a philosophical axiom I hold. You can try to find exceptions--but for me, it is a core premise. You cannot censor evil without doing greater harm. Given censorship is unconditionally evil, then I would *rather* have the evil done by violence and force than through some orderly systematic process. People at least recognize
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What happened to Kennedy? and what "legal avenue" would you use to find out? The western world might be the lesser of two evils, but it's still that. You are implying it isn't as much as I was implying that China was somehow more admirable.
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Why would they have no idea what's going on? They can read Slashdot just like you can, and therefore can find out about this from the same source as you have. There are also an enormous number of Chinese-language blogs with similar content.
China's firewall is, in practice (in my experience) fairly li
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The average Chinese young person has never heard of Tiananmen Square (or at least, they've never heard of the protests). Personally, I have a problem with that.
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China is not the least bit open about their censorship.
There are just some things they censor that they don't mind the public finding out that they censor.
Obviously they don't mind the public knowing they have some censorship programs.
They also have little control of foreign nationals such as the director of that NGO reporting the fact they censored it, without creating a diplomatic incident.
Buth there ARE things China censors and doesn't want the public to know that they've censored anything, the
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So...to hell with probably all of them? (at the least pretty much all "notable" ones)
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Whatever it takes!
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What about -1 , "Censorship" ?
He basically said what i was thinking ( i can't speak for anyone else ) , but i don't say it , because i don't want to modded down.
So in a sense , that's a form a self-imposed censorship.
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I am currently in correspondence with a person who posted a documentary on You Tube about Bergen-Belsen concentration camp [wikipedia.org], and that video has been removed for TOS violation.
While Google, of course, is not the US government, they will be staying within bounds influenced by the Administration.
While it is easy to stand of a soap box and say "Fuck China" for its censorship, it is not so easy
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Could someone censor this man? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:China Censorship Is Not News (Score:5, Insightful)
The day we start accepting it is the way we lose.
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True of both sides.
China Censorship Is News (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I wish I had mod points, because the parent is deeply Insightful.
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And to add to this line of reasoning, in the US, the abstinence neo-cons have censored, by removing funds from adequate sex education in the US. SO we have as a result, far more STDs, unwanted pregnancies, children in poverty, and the emotional and financial toll for these.
The Bush Administration did it by withholding funds, condom education, free needles, and many other action that would appear on the surface to condone their visage of immoral behavior, but instead, just abetted stupidity.
Try as you will,
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At least in the USA you can fight back.
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More STDs== more health costs.
More preventable pregnancies== more health and real costs.
Censoring the information did little good. Do you think people were abstinent? Can I sell you property in the Gulf?
It's censorship. The info needs to be out there. There are lots of people that would make different decisions based on 1) real information about STD and pregnancy mitigation rationales (said more plainly than I am) and giving people condoms and needles.
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God is on their side. I've found that negotiating with the pseudo-Christian mafia always boils down to insipid scriptural citations.
You can wave the evidence right under their noses, and they'll deny its existence, or cite trickery.
What results is that a minority of mostly WASconvervativePs make rules for what's become a heavily diverse constituency. As Dorothy might say, we're not in Kansas anymore.
Coalition building is a nice concept. There are constituencies that aren't going to be able to be considered
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That is a reality: they cannot impose their religious views on those that won't accept them.
Yes, moral components are still a strong piece how the mainstream lives. Dominating them, evangelizing them, imposing luridly awful religious restrictions, isn't the crux of liberty. Commonality is.... composed of democracy within this republic. Marginalizing thought isn't a good place to start.
And yet your posts on this thread indicate that you would very much love to impose your morality on others, particularly families with children and the children of those families. And that you would very much love to marginalize the thoughts of those you disagree with.
Another strange idea you present: Commonality is the crux of liberty. That is almost an oxymoron. Liberty means the freedom to do as you will. Commonality means the same as everyone else. Those two don't really go together very well. Unl
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No. I'd like to educate them, using scientific evidence rather than the insanity of Leviticus. Liberty is commonality that's experienced both personally, and also as a societal more.
Some of us need orthodoxy to lead us. Others see the human animal and know that it's not intelligent, and needs education to make choices that aren't hormonal... that won't lead to devastating consequences. We help educate; the choices are theirs. Withholding education, withholding funding for condoms and needles is what causes
Health or Politics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Health or Politics? (Score:5, Informative)
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Kevin Peter Hall [imdb.com], the original actor in the Predator suit in Predator 1 and Predator 2 died that way, AIDS via incompetent blood transfusion after a car crash. He was in Misfits of Science [imdb.com] too. Such a loss :(
More importantly, Isaac Asimov [wikipedia.org] died that way as well -- and the doctors cajoled his family into hushing it up for decade (until the doctors were dead as well).
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Also China's government still has a real problem, that many totalitarian type governments do, of thinking that their wishes make reality. They are used to in normal life saying "This will happen!" and it does. Their word is law and all that jazz.
So what you get because of that is an attitude of "If we don't pay attention to it, it isn't real." This happened with SARS. China didn't want it to be a problem, so the government basically ignored it and suppressed information on it. However, it eventually grew to
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Quoting Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: Early efforts to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic emphasized enforcement of laws against high-risk behavior, but later lessons from effective interventions in pilot programs and in other countries (e.g. needle exchange programs in Australia and condom campaigns for sex workers in Thailand) have
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As it was in every other country. Including the USA. I remember Isaac Asimov, for one, was infected via a transfusion and died of AIDS. Of course, China should have learnt from the USA, but they were sure that it was just a disease of foreigners (as Americans used to think it was only gays and Haitians)
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I would think the government would agree to distributing information purely about health issues.
Indeed. Only a total idiot would think it's a good idea to deliberately withhold information about health issues for political reasons. Speaking of which, how's that whole "abstinence only" thing working out?
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The abstinence-only people deserve to rot in a hell of their own creation just like the Chinese censors.
Just because one thing is bad doesn't make another bad thing less bad.
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You're missing political context here.
"Abstinence-only" refers to radical Christians in the USA who believe that, rather than offering comprehensive sex education to children, we should instead teach them that any sexual activity before marriage is sinful and exceptionally dangerous, and that teaching them about contraception will only encourage them to have sex, so we shouldn't do that.
They're not just practicing abstinence, they're insisting the rest of us do so too, and depriving children of access to ed
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You're missing political context here.
They're not just practicing abstinence, they're insisting the rest of us do so too, and depriving children of access to education -- often, to crucial information that will keep them safe. And THAT is the problem.
Which of course argues against government control of the educational system. But I don't think too many people on either side of that debate would be interested in that obvious conclusion.
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And sometimes, it's about Politics in Health.
China isn't the first nation to grapple with HIV in blood transfusions. The United States' blood transfusion industry lobbied in the 1980s to suppress the issue over concerns about their reputation and revenue, and succeeded to some degree.
In this case, China's communist government is probably being lobbied, too -- and as an easily corrupted system with great powers, we see instances like this.
Fortunately, there are also top-level politicians trying to turn it i [chinacsr.com]
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Since the glorious healthcare they provide is incapable of making mistakes (by virtue of it's incredible superiority), claiming someone got AIDS from a transfusion borders on blasphemy
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http://www.asiahealthcareblog.com/2010/04/27/blood-money-why-blood-transfusions-are-so-dirty-in-china/ [asiahealthcareblog.com]
Re:good move, USA should also ban hysteria reporti (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the guise of banning hysteria reporting, china bans anything that makes corrupt public officials look bad.
Re:good move, USA should also ban hysteria reporti (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
'Hysteria reporting'? Nope. (Score:1)
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 medica
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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%.
unusual? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe... (Score:2)
...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.
How China's censoring of epidemic info will fare.. (Score:2)
Oh this is like the last time they tried to censor information about Avian Fl*COUGH*COUGH*burp*hack*COUGH*cough... :-(~~~~~~~
The final AIDS solution (Score:1)
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You assume that people would be lining up for the suicide booth even if AIDS did mean a death penalty back then. I did not approach my flippant answer from the moral point of view, you only have to take into account self preservation. This would end up hiding the problem and thus making it worse whereas nowadays a concerted no bs effort could meet your objectives.
Besides, your solution would need to get approved worldwide and I don't see that happening; not to mention that Greenpeace would probably tear you
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However you decide to kill people they will object thus doing everything in their power to be outside this compassionate response. Essentially in this case the suicide booth would be a doctors reception, prison or whichever place the establishment would get a chance to sample your blood.
I guess you won't be dissuaded by how much worse the world* would be if we even had a chance to put something like this solution into motion. So I'll just say that, just from the human point of view, it really bums me out.
(*
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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
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Given those experiences, I would be inclined to agree with each or your posits.
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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?
The hospital bills the family. Which they can't pay. The hospital puts a lien on all their assets. Basically ruins their life.
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Yeah, why would a country that has rigid and draconian population controls (one child) in place avoid taking an aggressive stance against a deadly communicable disease? It is almost as if losing MILLIONS of lives is of no consequence to them!
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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.
Eh, you're suggesting compulsory HIV tests, and anybody with positive results would be immediately arrested, and if followup test showed positive result (or perhaps, in especially in a country like China, somebody in power decided that this person clearly has HIV because of his political activities...), then *BANG*?
And you're from China...? If a lot of people think that it's ok for government to wield that kind of power, no wonder things are as they are over there... Well, I guess it's a cultural thing. I
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Are you sure we would have saved millions of lives? Killing everyone who is HIV positive would not have stopped the pandemic, and may even have made it worse.
Today, HIV testing is routine and has very little stigma. If you have an HIV test, and it is positive, then you can take steps to minimise your chances of infecting other people, and you can manage the illness (at least to some degree). There is clear incentive to get tested, and so people do it. Stigma-fee HIV testing means the spread of the virus can
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By the end of 1985, 20,303 cases of AIDS had been reported to the World Health Organisation.In the USA 15,948 cases of AIDS had been reported, and in the UK 275 cases. -- http://www.avert.org/aids-history-86.htm
In 1985 there was a reliable test for AIDS and 36,526 known cases [avert.org] worldwide. I stand by my original numbers of there being in the 100s of thousands of cases or less at the time.
Given that there are an estimated 33.4 million [thebody.com] people currently living with HIV/AIDS in the world and millions of people dyeing each year [cia.gov]. I also stand by my numbers of millions of lives saved. Could all HIV/AIDS infected people now be removed from population to limit the continuance of this virus? Not likely IMO, I feel it would ce
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How do you guarantee that your method would mean fewer HIV positive people now? HIV testing saves lives, not least because people who know they are HIV positive are less likely to infect other people ( at least most of the time [wikipedia.org]).
With no HIV testing, the virus continues to spread unchecked.
With high-stigma HIV testing, testing rates are low, and the virus continues to spread almost as if there was no testing.
With stigma-free HIV testing, people with the virus can be identified and modify their lives to reduce
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There is a big difference between passing on something that can be cured with one dose of antibiotics, and something that will kill you. One is a nasty thing to do, the other is borderline murder. But I'd like to know what statistics you are using. How many people continue to have risky sex when they know they are infected with "lesser STDs"?
For your original suggestion to be valid, you will have to show that HIV detection rates would not have been adversely affected by your draconian solution. You still ha
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So you have no statistics or projections to back up your original proposal?
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I take this as indicating that your uncle thought that he would have so little control over his personal actions that he would be personally responsible for infecting a significant number of other people with the pathogen in the time between his postulated execution and the estimated date of his incapacity.
By the early '90s (your story), it was very well known that the HIV pathogen is moderately hard to pass from one per
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My uncle contracted HIV in the mid 80's from a blood transfusion. He was dyeing of AIDS in the early 90's. It's downright scary to me that you consider it "moderately hard to pass from one person to another." His fear was that if he were involved in an accident, his blood could infect another person in the act of trying to save HIS life.
As far as your rant as to the personal thoughts and actions of a person whom you never knew about until quite recently, perhaps such descriptions as psychopathic and narciss
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And the documented number of people accidentally infected by blood splatter from a haemophiliac is ? Millions?
Bullshit I called and still call.
Clever name (Score:1)
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 [wikipedia.org] episode.
Chinese AIDS story (Score:1)
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
www.kika.net (Score:1)
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Are you ALWAYS awake?
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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.
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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)