Don’t visit US, China orders doctor Jiang Yanyong who exposed SARS cover-up

15 July, 2007:

A Chinese doctor who exposed the cover-up of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China in 2003 has been barred from traveling to the United States to receive a human rights award.

Dr Jiang Yanyong, a retired surgeon in the People’s Liberation Army, was awarded the Heinz R Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award by the New York Academy of Sciences. Dr Jiang’s army-affiliated work unit, Beijing’s Hospital 301, denied him permission to travel to the award ceremony to be held in September 2007, Hu Jia, a Chinese rights promoter and a friend of Dr Jiang’s, has said.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, based in Hong Kong, also issued a statement reporting the rejection of Dr Jiang’s request for travel to the US.

Dr Jiang Yanyong rose to international prominence in 2003, when he disclosed in a letter circulated to international news organizations that at least 100 people were being treated in hospitals in Beijing for SARS. At the time, the Chinese medical authorities were asserting that the entire nation had only a handful of cases of the disease.

The revelation by Dr Jiang prompted China’s top leaders to acknowledge that they had provided false information about the epidemic. The Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing were subsequently removed from their posts.

Over 800 people died of SARS eventually worldwide, and the Chinese government came under international scrutiny for failing to provide timely information that medical experts said might have saved lives.

Dr Jiang was initially hailed as a hero in Chinese and foreign news media. And, he used his newfound reputation, in 2004, to press China’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee to admit that the leadership had made a mistake in ordering the military to shoot unarmed civilians on June 3 and 4, 1989, when troops were deployed to suppress pro-democracy protests that began in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Dr Jiang, who treated Beijing residents wounded in the 1989 Tiananmen Square assault, insisted that the official line that the crackdown was necessary to put down a rebellion was false. His statement naturally antagonized the communist party leaders.

Jiang Zemin, the then-leader of the military, ordered the detention of Dr Jiang, who spent several months in custody, according to people involved in his defence.

Dr Jiang was eventually allowed to return to his home but remained under constant watch. He has not been allowed to accept press requests for interviews or to visit family members who live in the United States, friends and human rights groups say.