China Approves Special Jails for AIDS Victims: Report

On Sunday, Chinese state media announced that Guangdong province approved the opening of special detention centers for convicts with AIDS. "In principle, city authorities are permitted to set up dedicated facilities for AIDS sufferers and other special categories among drug criminals," the provincial government said, according to the Southern Metropolitan News. The move, the paper reported, comes after several years of steady growth in the proportion of inmates with AIDS. A lawmaker said AIDS patients in the prison population are "fearless" and carry "a trump card" in the form of their disease. The lawmaker did not elaborate but appeared to accuse AIDS patients of intimidating other inmates by threatening to infect them.

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