China's Anti-Gay Crackdown

The wave of repression and intimidation of human rights activists and dissidents in China in advance of the Beijing Olympics has also targeted homosexuals, according to China's best-known gay and AIDS activist.

In an email, Dr. Wan Yanhai reported that the month of March saw numerous police raids on gay gathering spots in Beijing and Shanghai, and he said that the evidence of a new pre-Olympic crackdown on gays is so widespread it is clear it is being orchestrated "at the national level."

Wan is not just anybody. A former official of China's Ministry of Public Health, he was fired in 1994 for his participation in AIDS information and prevention campaigns and for his support of full equal rights for homosexuals.

After being purged from the ministry, Wan founded the AIDS-fighting Aizhixing Action Project (the Chinese characters for "Aizhixing" represent love, knowledge, and action, and are a play on the Chinese word for AIDS). The association also works for freedom of expression on the Internet and is active on behalf of LGBT rights.

In 2002, Wan was kidnapped by the authorities and then arrested for having disseminated an internal government report on the contaminated blood scandal in China, in which some estimates say as many as a million people were infected with HIV through transfusions in 23 of China's 30 provinces. Wan was freed after a month in prison following a worldwide campaign for his liberation that received enormous publicity.

In 2006, Wan was again arrested for having accused the Chinese government of "falling asleep" in the face of the mushrooming AIDS crisis. An international AIDS conference he organized in China for that time was canceled on the government's order.

South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, in San Francisco to receive an award on April 8 from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) for his work on behalf of lesbian and gay rights, used the occasion to call on world leaders to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Tutu praised the willingness of people around the world to protest China's repression of Tibet and on its own soil.

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