|
Xinjiang Hepatitis Students Battle
School Ban
 Uyghur
students at a school in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP
HONG KONG—A group of high-school students from the
northwestern, mainly Muslim Uyghur region of Xinjiang
is still fighting their exclusion from school because
they are infected with the Hepatitis B virus.
Authorities in the regional capital of Urumqi
announced Thursday that seven ethnic minority Uyghur
families who sued the local government over the
expulsions had withdrawn their lawsuit.
But a hepatitis non-government group has said they
were coerced into doing so by local officials, police
and employers.
“Some people in the local government were visiting the
homes of these students for ‘chats’ with their parents
to put pressure on them to back down,” Lu Jun, head of
the rights office at Hepatitis Forum, told RFA’s
Mandarin service.
“Any who refused were taken down to the police station
to be threatened and terrorized into signing the form
withdrawing the case right there on the spot, with
their thumbprint and everything. So they were forced
into it.”
Some people in the local government were
visiting the homes of these students for 'chats' with
their parents to put pressure on them to back down.
Lu Jun, spokesman for Hepatitis Forum
Lu said pressure was also brought to bear on the
students’ parents via employers and through their
local village committees. “This had the effect of
making them believe that their job was on the line,”
he said.
Asked to leave school
Lu said the families’ telephone lines were being
monitored and some of them were under 24 hour
surveillance. The parents of the children had had to
rely on friends to get the news about their
circumstances to the outside world.
Calls to one of the families went unanswered.
The case began back at the beginning of the academic
year in September, when 19 high school students who
were either carriers or infected with Hepatitis B in
the regional capital of Urumqi were forced to leave
school by the municipal education authorities.
This was in contravention of national laws which
forbid discrimination against carriers of the
Hepatitis B virus, which is only spread through sexual
contact, mother-to-baby, or through contaminated blood.
On Sept. 29 seven of the affected parents filed a
lawsuit against the education bureau of the Urumqi
municipal government at the (Tengritagh) Tianshan
district court in the city.
The hearing was originally scheduled to take place on
Nov. 9, but the date was repeatedly postponed by the
court, before it announced Thursday that the case had
been withdrawn by all the parents who had filed it.
Unlawful discrimination
With 210,000 members nationwide, the Hepatitis
Forum is one of the biggest groups in China dedicated
to fighting all forms of discrimination against
Hepatitis B carriers, and it had been following the
case of the Urumqi students very carefully.
A non-government group in Xinjiang, Snow Lotus, was
shut down after it wrote open letters on behalf of the
expelled students.
The Prevention of Infectious Diseases Law of the
People’s Republic of China states that it is unlawful
to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of their
infection with an illness or virus.
Lu said local officials were keen to cover up their
own mistakes.
“It’s very clear from this incident that the attitude
of the local government is out of line with central
government policy on this matter. They know they are
in the wrong. They want to sweep this incident under
the rug so that central government doesn’t find out
what’s been going on,” he told reporter Shen Hua.
“So you have a situation in which the case doesn’t
even get to the first hearing because the plaintiffs
have withdrawn their case. They think that will
minimize the impact of this affair.”
Calls to one of the legal representatives of the
families went unanswered. But another Xinjiang lawyer,
Sun Desheng, said the right of Chinese citizens to sue
the authorities was protected in law.
“According to Chinese law, citizens have a right to
sue the government. That right should be protected by
law,” Sun told reporter Shen Hua.
Beijing clinics launched
Article 2 of the Administrative Procedure Law of
the PRC states: “In the event that citizens are of the
opinion that the actions of administrative organs and
their staff have harmed their rights and opinions,
they have the right to bring a lawsuit in a People’s
Court under this law.”
Hepatitis B affects more than 120 million Chinese and
is considered a major threat to public health,
according to China’s health ministry.
In remarks quoted in the official English-language
China Daily newspaper, health ministry spokesman Mao
Qun’an blasted the decision to ban the pupils.
“This is prejudice,” Mao was quoted as saying. “All
these students can go to school unless they are sick
enough to be hospitalized.”
Authorities in Beijing have set up two specialized
clinics for the treatment of teenagers with Hepatitis
B, who are at the right age to begin antiviral
treatments, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
.
|
