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CHINA'S SARS WHISTLEBLOWER

In China Dr Jiang Yanyong (aged 72) blew the whistle on his government's cover-up of the SARS outbreak. He told the media (April 2003) he did not think he would be punished for sending out an open letter about the cover-up.

The retired People's Liberation Army surgeon apparently believed that because he was high up in the military, a veteran Communist Party member and a doctor discharging what he called his 'professional responsibility to protect the health of the people', he would be safe. He was wrong.

His whistleblowing helped to contain a global outbreak, which in the event killed 800. Finding that he was not being listened to, and had instead been put under constant surveillance, Dr Jiang went a step further - he wrote in early 2004 to all the senior Chinese leaders denouncing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Then he and his wife 'disappeared' on 1st June. They were in detention. While his wife was soon released, Dr Jiang was put under daily psychological pressure to recant.

In his letter about the Tiananmen massacre he disclosed that China's late President Yang Shangkun and Party elder Chen Yun privately expressed regret over the brutality. For the past 15 years the Chinese government has insisted that the demonstration was a 'counterrevolutionary rebellion' engineered by a small number of extremists and denied reports of the mass killing of innocent civilians. Jiang said that if the leaders who gave the orders had since admitted they were wrong, then it was time for the current leadership to make themselves accountable for the event. Jiang refused to recant and was held in detention. He was not formally arrested or charged with a crime.

After nearly two months, faced with growing international protests the Chinese government finally yielded and released Dr Jiang. He did not recant.

NOTE:

A Chinese language version of Freedom to Care's 'Charter of Public Accountability' appears on this website.

FtC October 2004