Photo via chinaaid.org

U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton meets with China's AIDS activist

On the eve of World AIDS Day, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the outspoken China's AIDS activist Dr Gao Yaojie at her office at around 2:00 PM for 15 minutes. The Secretary embraced what she called her 'old friend.' This is Madame Secretary's fourth meeting with Dr Gao, reports ChinaAid.

Dr. Gao told Sec. Clinton that she had to leave China reluctantly because of the intense persecution against dissent voices in China. She also mentioned the persecution had intensified this year, not only against aids activists like her, but also against house church leaders such as Ms. Yang Rongli from Linfen City, Shanxi who received 7 years imprisonment on November 25 as a Christian church leader. According to Dr. Gao, The Secretary told her through a translator that she is also a Christian. When Dr. Gao told the Secretary that she thought the Secretary was smarter than her husband, former president Bill Clinton, they burst to laughter. The US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women Affairs and Secretary's Senior Advisor attended the meeting. Prior to that meeting, Dr. Gao held another 45-minute meeting with senior officials from DRL and Bureau for Asia and Pacific Affairs on the AIDS pandemic in China.

Facing the imminent danger of arrest for her activism, exposing the truth about the cause of millions of AIDS-infected, and for offering her voice for that voiceless group, Dr. Gao was forced to leave her home in Henan and went into hiding on May 6th of this year. With the help of ChinaAid Association, she was able to flee out of China on August 7, 2009.

On Tuesday, World AIDS Day, at a press conference hosted by Open Books and ChinaAid, she made her first public appearance at the National Press Club with her book launch called "China's AIDS Plague: 10,000 Letters." U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, the Chair of Congressional Task Force on International HIV/AIDS, commended Dr Gao's courageous work in uncovering the truth behind the AIDS pandemic in China, despite persecution by the Chinese government. Read the Congressman's Prepared Remarks and Introduction.

According to Dr. Gao's own findings (she herself traveled several hundred villages in more than a dozen provinces in China) and to the Chinese government's claim, the vast majority of millions of HIV/AIDS-infected in China were and currently are caused by the blood transfusions from hundreds of underground blood banks tainted with aids virus.

"As the Mother Teresa of China, we had to take action to rescue this courageous honorable lady out of danger, " said ChinaAid President Bob Fu, who personally made the arrangement for a staff members to accompany Dr. Gao from China to U.S. "We are pleased that she can now write her book in the U.S. free from fear by the Chinese government." Dr Gao is currently living at Texas.

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TAGS: USA Hillary Clinton China's AIDS activist Dr Gao Yaojie AIDS pandemic China's AIDS Plague: 10 000 Letters

[12/08/2009]

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