Dr. Jiang_Yanyong, hero of the 2003 SARS epidemic, imprisoned for speaking out about Tiananmen Square

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tim Bishop <geodog () cyberdude com>
Date: June 30, 2004 3:50:02 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: dgillmor () sjmercury com, geodog () cyberdude com, 
xiao.qiang () hrichina org
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 () cyberdude com
 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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