An outspoken Chinese AIDS activist who publicized the plight of large numbers of farmers infected after selling blood is missing and feared detained by Chinese police, his wife and a rights group said yesterday.
Wan Yanhai, who founded and ran the AIDS Action Project, a private non-profit group which advocates rights and services for China's AIDS sufferers, has been missing since Sunday evening, his wife Su Zhaosheng said from her home in California, where she is currently studying.
"I haven't been able to reach him on his mobile phone or home phone for days. His mobile phone is switched off and there is no one at home. That's very strange because we talk every day. No matter how late, he always answers the phone," Su said, adding that Wan had also not answered e-mails.
Liu Qing, president of the New York-based Human Rights In China (HRIC) group, said Wan could have been detained.
"I believe it's related to what has happened to him recently. There's a great possibility he's been arrested by Chinese police," Liu said.
"The Chinese government has long not allowed voices other than their own and Wan was a frequent, independent voice on the AIDS problems," he said.
Last month, Wan's group received notice from its partner, a university, to vacate its campus office.
No reason was given, but the university said it received orders from higher authorities to stop cooperating with the group, Wan said at the time.
His staff were called in by police for questioning. Following the eviction, Wan was frequently followed by plainclothes police, Liu said.
The group's problems with the authorities started early this year, when a member helped AIDS sufferers hand a petition to the government, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The member was later detained, and security agents began an investigation into the group, according to the Center.
Wan and his group had been one of the most active NGOs in China in bringing attention to the plight of peasant AIDS sufferers.
His group's Web site aizhi.org has published names of farmers who died of AIDS after selling blood in villages in central China's Henan Province, where the scandal was first revealed.
Wan has published his essays on the Web site and told reporters in interviews that the government allowed blood stations to be set up in the countryside in 1980s to the mid-1990s, leading to large numbers of infections.
The blood dealers would use unsanitary collection methods, drawing blood from unclean needles and pooling it together to extract the plasma before pumping the remainder back into donors.
In the past two years, Wan also began helping AIDS sufferers arriving in Beijing to seek medical care and helped pay their expenses.
Wan is also known by AIDS groups overseas and divides his time between Beijing and the US, where he seeks support for AIDS sufferers in China, Liu said.
The NGO is known among the international AIDS prevention community and has received funding from overseas groups such as the Elisabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
Su said she had asked friends to contact Beijing police about his whereabouts. HRIC is also calling on Chinese authorities to investigate.
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