International News Chinese Health Official Arrested for Leaking AIDS SecretsAugust 19, 2003 A prominent health official in China's AIDS-stricken Henan
province has been arrested for allegedly leaking secret documents
related to the infection of tens of thousands of villagers
through blood transfusions, an AIDS activist said Tuesday. Ma
Shiwen, deputy director of the Henan Centers for Disease Control,
was arrested for providing documents on the Henan epidemic to the
nongovernmental AIDS activist organization Aizhi Action Group,
said the group's director Wan Yanhai.
Adapted from:"According to health officials in Henan, Ma Shiwen was arrested in recent days and is being charged with leaking state secrets," reported Wan, who is in the United States as a visiting scholar. "It's possible that the secrets leaked concerned official documents that were anonymously sent to [AAG] on August 24 last year and which revealed the extent of the AIDS outbreak in Henan," he continued. Wan was also charged with leaking state secrets days after he received the documents and posted them on AAG's Web site. Wan was released a month later following an international outcry and after police confirmed that the documents were anonymously sent to the group. "As far as I know, Ma Shiwen has not been formally sacked, he is still deputy director of the section, he has just disappeared," said a colleague at the Henan CDC, who refused to identify himself. Other officials at Henan's health bureau refused to comment when contacted. Agence France Presse 08.19.03; Robert J. Saiget This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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