[IP] Dr. Jiang_Yanyong, hero of the 2003 SARS epidemic, imprisoned for speaking out about Tiananmen Square
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tim Bishop <geodog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 30, 2004 3:50:02 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: dgillmor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, geodog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
xiao.qiang@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Dr. Jiang_Yanyong, hero of the 2003 SARS epidemic, imprisoned
for speaking out about Tiananmen Square
Dave,
For IP if you think relevant:
Dr. Jiang_Yanyong, who saved countless lives during the 2003 SARS
epidemic by blowing the whistle on the official lies about SARS in
China, has been imprisoned for speaking out about Tiananmen Square (see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33666-2004Jun11.html). I
would ask your readers to join Human Rights Watch in calling for the
immediate release of Dr. Jiang
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/06/10/china8794.htm). He saved
countless lives, in China and outside, with his selfless actions during
the SARS epidemic. Plus, telling your own version of the truth should
not be a cause for incarceration.
I wrote about this in more detail at http://www.sarswatch.org, (which
I started last year as a result of reading your post from
Dr. Tom Buckley of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong), and I
reproduce what I wrote below in case you want to include it:
During the 2003 SARS epidemic, I did my best to stay out of the
politics of SARS at SARS Watch Org, in order to be able to serve more
people with helpful information, but there are times when I felt I had
to speak up. Today I once again feel compelled to speak out, perhaps
emboldened by the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday finally
rejected Bush's tyrannical claim that the US government could
indefinitely detain people incommunicado and without recourse to
judicial review of their incarceration, so I now I don't feel like such
a hypocrite talking about human right violations in other countries.
According to several sources, the Chinese authorities have detained
Dr. Jiang Yanyong, the retired surgeon, People's Liberation Army
veteran, and long-time Communist Party member who was one of the heros
of the SARS epidemic. As you may recall, at a time when the Chinese
government was lying and denying that there were more than a handful of
SARS cases in China, and was driving SARS patients around Beijing in
ambulances to hide them from the World Health Organization, Dr. Jiang
Yanyong wrote and signed a letter to the Beijing TV station and Time
Magazine telling the truth about the magnitude of the SARS epidemic in
Beijing. This simple act of truth telling did as much as any other act
to stop the spread of SARS, and to begin the process of containing the
epidemic. As I noted earlier, given that the party line became that the
officials who concealed the SARS epidemic were the wrong doers, Dr.
Jiang Yanyong was not punished for speaking out, and was even faintly
praised in a People's Daily article.
Apparently Dr. Jiang Yanyong has been truth-telling again, and the
response of the authorities has been considerably harsher. In February
he wrote a heart-felt and heart-rending letter to the Chair of the
National People's Congress detailing his experiences as a surgeon on
duty the night the troops started killing the students in Tiananmen
Square, and calling for a reassessment of the June 4th Incident. A few
quotes from the a translation of the letter, which is worth reading in
its entirety:
At about 2200 when I was in my dormitory, I heard continuous gunshots
from the north. Several minutes later, my pager beeped. It was the
emergency room's call. So I rushed there. I could not believe my
eyes--lying on the floor and the examination tables were seven young
people with blood all over their faces and bodies. Two of them were
later confirmed dead after an EKG test. My brain buzzed and I almost
passed out. I have been a surgeon for more than 30 years. ...
However, lying before me this time were our own people, killed by
children of the Chinese people, with weapons given to them by the
people, in Beijing, the magnificent capital of China. But I could not
afford the time to think at that time. After another salvo of gunshots,
more wounded young people--I didn't know the exact number--were brought
to the emergency room by people in the vicinity with pull carts and
pedicabs....
During the two-hour period from 2200 to midnight, our hospital's
emergency room accepted 89 patients with bullet wounds. Seven of them
later died despite emergency treatment....
In 1998, I called on [former Chinese President] Comrade Yang Shangkun
at his residence ... Yang indicated that the June 4th Incident was an
incident in which the CPC committed the most serious mistakes in its
history. He said he could not do anything to correct the mistake, but
said that the mistakes would be corrected in the future. ...
Since the new party and state leading collectives formed after the 16th
National Party Congress have stressed on all occasions the need to act
on the Constitution and be people-centered, then the NPC Standing
Committee, the CPPCC Standing Committee ["standing committee" as
published], the members of the 16th CPC Central Committee Political
Bureau and members of its standing committee must reassess the June 4th
Incident in light of the criteria in the PRC Constitution and the
party's three most fundamental principles -- "integrating theory with
practice (or seeking truth from facts), maintaining close ties with the
masses, and making criticism and self-criticism." Our party must
address the mistake it has made. The earlier these mistakes are
resolved and the more thorough they are resolved, the better.
As a result of writing this letter, Dr. Jiang was detained before the
15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and has been held
incommunicado since. His daughter told the Washington Post that the
Chinese authorities had "asked her brother to deliver her father's
dentures and his razor" and "passed him a note from their mother
indicating that the couple would not be able to visit her in California
this summer as they had planned". As far as I have been able to find
out, nothing has been heard from him since.
I ask my readers to join Human Rights Watch in calling for the
immediate release of Dr. Jiang. He saved countless lives, in China and
outside, with his selfless actions during the SARS epidemic. Plus,
telling your own version of the truth should not be a cause for
incarceration, in China or the United States.
--
Thanks,
Tim Bishop
email mailto://geodog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
professional http://www.timbishop.com/
opinions http://tiltingatwindmills.com/
news links http://www.midnightblog.com/
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you,
it's the things you know that ain't so"
-- Mark Twain
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