A property developer in China reportedly hired a group of people with HIV to harass residents into leaving their homes, sparking anger from the country’s Internet users yesterday.
The case is the latest to highlight widespread discrimination in China against people living with HIV and AIDS.
It also underscores the unscrupulous lengths to which some real-estate firms and officials go to evict residents in a country where reselling land can provide big dividends for local governments.
Photo: AFP
“The obscene tactics of demolition teams emerge in innumerable succession,” one user of Sina Weibo wrote yesterday.
“The government departments definitely knew about this, they’re just pretending they didn’t,” another wrote.
According to a report late on Monday by state broadcaster China Central Television, a property developer in Nanyang hired six people with HIV in an effort to force local residents from a housing compound that was set for demolition.
Li Gejun, deputy head of the propaganda office in Wolong, a district of Nanyang, told CCTV that the Yi’an Real Estate Co hired the patients “in order to achieve its goal of speedy demolition.”
Footage by the broadcaster showed the words “AIDS demolition team” spray-painted in red on many of the compound’s walls.
The team also set off firecrackers, harassed residents and shot slingshots and ball bearings at their windows, according to Xinhua news agency.
Four officials have been reprimanded and five suspects held in connection with the case, Xinhua reported, adding that the housing compound had been “slated for demolition under a government plan.”
Forced demolition is a perennial source of discontent in China, where local governments can often earn enormous revenue by evicting people to clear land and then reselling it to developers.
The incident took place in Henan Province, which in the 1990s was hit by a debilitating AIDS epidemic that stemmed from a tainted government-backed blood donation program and infected tens of thousands of people.
It comes on the heels of reports earlier this month that Chinese villagers had targeted an eight-year-old HIV-positive boy for expulsion, drawing widespread condemnation.
About 200 residents — including the child’s own grandfather — signed a petition to expel the boy from their village in Sichuan Province to “protect villagers’ health.”
Discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS remains an issue at schools, hospitals, workplaces and other establishments across China, a factor that experts say hampers efforts to diagnose and treat it.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS