In one incident, an activist in Henan province, where the nation's AIDS crisis hit early claims police ordered him out of his office Thursday and suggested that he vacate the area for his own safety.

"They said our organization was illegal and our activities were illegal," says Zhu Zhaowu of the China Orchid AIDS Project's office in Kaifeng in central Henan province.

In the same city, police stopped a conference for AIDS activists that had been scheduled for Aug. 19-20 by another nonprofit group, known as Grassroots.

That is not all. Earlier this month, police had reportedly banned two other AIDS conferences in the southern city of Guangzhou — one that was to bring legal scholars from three continents and another at Sun Yatsen University.

These barricades are disturbing foreign experts who seek to help China cope with the rising challenges of combating HIV infection.

Says Meg Davis, director of Asia Catalyst, a New York-based group and co-sponsor of the canceled Guangzhou legal conference: "Nothing about it makes any sense.

"China is at a crossroads both in terms of its fight against AIDS and its very new and fragile civil society," Davis adds.

Meanwhile, some domestic activists stress that China’s leaders are bearing down on HIV/AIDS programs because they worry that international media attention in the run-up to next summer's Olympic Games will focus on aspects of China that leaders find embarrassing.

"They hope that there will be no unharmonious voices during the Olympics period," quotes Hu Jia, an activist and co-founder of a nonprofit Beijing AIDS group.

Yet, legal experts say this crackdown could backfire on China's efforts to combat HIV infection.

"If you suppress human rights, what happens is that people vulnerable to HIV are scared to be tested or seek treatment," warns Mark Heywood, founder of South Africa's AIDS Law Project and chairman of the UNAIDS Human Rights Reference Group, a body offering advice on the global epidemic.

Source-Medindia
ANN/B