Chinese Officials Harass Group That Fights Hepatitis Bias

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

BEIJING — In the realm of potential threats to China’s stability, an organization that advocates on behalf of people infected with hepatitis B would seem to be low risk.

But on Wednesday, the group’s director, Lu Jun, found himself squaring off against four security officials who were trying to cart away stacks of literature they claimed was printed without official permission.

In the end, Mr. Lu scored a partial victory. After eight hours rifling through drawers and photographing volunteers, the inspectors walked off with 90 pamphlets but Mr. Lu prevented them from delving into the group’s computer files. “I fear this is not the end of it,” he said on Thursday.

The raid on Mr. Lu’s organization, the Yi Ren Ping Center, comes at a precarious time for China’s nongovernmental organizations, many of which operate in a kind of legal gray zone. Two weeks ago, officials used a bureaucratic infraction to shut down the country’s pre-eminent legal rights center, Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative. The closing followed the disbarment of 53 lawyers known for taking on civil rights and corruption cases. Just before dawn on Wednesday the founder of Gongmeng, Xu Zhiyong, was taken into police custody and has not been heard from since.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/asia/31hepatitis.html