本帖最后由 StephenW 于 2012-8-4 13:24 编辑
http://www.techinasia.com/china-blocks-hep-patient-rights-website-world-hepatitis-day/#comment-35210
China Blocks Hep B Patient Rights Website Just Before World Hepatitis Day![](http://www.techinasia.com/techinasia/wp-content/authors/custerc-94.jpg)
12 hours ago by C. Custer, in Opinion, Web World Hepatitis Day is July 28th; it’s a day that’s meant to raise awareness of hepatitis B and C and encourage prevention and treatment. But according to the AIDS Policy Project, China’s biggest hepatitis B Patient Rights website was blocked in the country just before World Hepatitis Day. The reasons for the block are unclear, but several days later, the site remains blocked.
The site — In the Hepatitis B Camp Network — is a nonprofit BBS forum that serves as a “camp” for China’s hepatits B patients, of which there are around 120 million. It serves as an important place for information exchange among patients about rights, treatments, and ways to deal with the disease. That’s especially important in China, where Hep B patients are highly stigmatized. From AIDS Policy Project:
In China, due to the exaggeration on seriousness of HBV in HBV medicine advertisements and incapability of government, the HBV-related discrimination and stigma is very serious and widespread, the fundamental rights of work and education of the people with HBV positive are deprived brutally. According to a research in 2007, more than 20 laws contained discriminatory articles against HBV carriers [...] In 2003, ‘In the Hepatitis B Camp Network of China’ started an anti-discrimination citizen campaign through rational and legal means and has become one of the main forces in fighting against the HBV-related discrimination in China since then. During the past nine years, the website supported hundreds of HBV carriers to sue many state owned companies, multinational companies and local governments for employment discrimination, and to sue many schools and universities for rejecting children with HBV, regardless of the risk of revenge.
It’s not clear whether that campaign has resulted in the website being blocked, but whatever the reason, let’s call this what it is: disgusting. The stigmatization of hepatitis patients and carriers of other diseases in China can be rather extreme, and the internet should be a tool that offers patients the support they need while promoting awareness and rationality among others so that patients are treated like human beings. Blocking a major site like this is heartless, and only serves to further the nonsensical stigmatization of Chinese hepatits B patients. Blocking a major site like this on the eve of World Hepatitis Day…now that’s just despicable.
[via AIDS Policy Project]
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