China: Tian Xi Deserves Happiness

On September 4, I received the following photo via sina microblog.

The girl is holding a placard that said: Save uncle Tian Xi! Uncle Tian Xi you have to be happy! In fact, “Xi” in Chinese means “happiness”. It is the hope of Tian's parents that he has a happy life but reality has drifted him in to an opposite direction.

23-year-old Tian Xi is an AIDS patient who was inflected with HIV in 1996 upon receiving a blood transmission in a hospital in Xincai county, Henan province. He was formally arrested on August 17 under the charge of criminal destruction of property and was transferred to the Prosecutorial detention center on August 25.

In order to save Tian Xi, his father visited a prominent journalist and blogger, Wang Keqin, who helped Tian's father to explain his side of the story in his blog:

7月23日,在北京的田喜接到新蔡县县委书记贾国印的短信,大意如下:你是大学生,你应该知道怎么办,你回来我们会解决你的问题,星期一你到我办公室找我。
    “县委书记亲自发短信给田喜,这是我们上访维权6年来的头一回啊。我们觉得政府是真的要解决问题了,田喜立马就从北京赶回了老家。”田父说。
    7月26日,星期一,田喜如约赶到县委书记办公室,但是并没有见到书记。县委其他同志说贾书记开会去了。
    于是田喜给贾国印发短信询问。贾书记回复要田喜再等一周,下个星期一再去办公室找他。
    8月2日,第二个星期一,上午8时30分田喜赶到县委书记办公室。但让他失望的是,贾书记又没出现,其他工作人员说贾书记又开会去了。

On July 23, Tian Xi, who was studying in Beijing, received a mobile text message from the Xincai county party secretary Jia Guoyin saying that: As a university student, you know what you should do to solve your problem. Come to my office on Monday.
Tian's father said: “After six years of petitioning, it was the first time the county party secretary sent a mobile message to Tian. We believed that the problem would definitely be solved. Tian went home immediately after receiving the message”.
On Monday, July 26, Tian went to the office of the party secretary but the staff said Secretary Jia was away for a meeting. Tian sent a text message to Jia, who asked him to visit his office again next monday.
On the following Monday, August 2, Tian arrived at the secretary office at 8:30 am. However, Jia once again did not turn up. The staff there again explained that he was busy with meetings.

Since the AIDS medicine that Tian got from Beijing was about to be used up, he decided to get medication from the local hospital, which is responsible for taking care of his disease.

8月2日当天从县委大楼出来后,田喜去了新蔡县第一人民医院,田喜就是在这家医院输血感染HIV病毒的。
    田喜来到李俊州院长办公室,希望借点药,并要求医院给予赔偿。李院长告诉田喜有事找县领导,医院不管,起身离开了办公室。
    “田喜很生气,把院长办公桌上的东西推到地下,有电脑、传真机、电话等。”“后来估价3000多元。”田父一字一句地向冯军说。
     8月5日和6日,田喜又两次来到李院长办公室。李院长还是避而不见,锁上办公室的门,不让田喜进去。
    “一怒之下,田喜用东西把院长办公室门上的锁眼堵了。”

After he left the government building on August 2, Tian Xi went to the Xincai county 1st People's Hospital. Tian Xi was inflected with the HIV virus in this hospital.
Tian Xi visited the office of the hospital chief, Li Junzhou, asking for medicine and compensation. Li asked him to talk to the leader of the county government and left the office.
Tian's father said: Tian Xi was very angry and pushed everything from the hospital chief's desk onto the ground, including the computer, fax machine and telephone. Later, it was estimated that the equipment cost about RMB3,000.
On August 5 and 6, Tian Xi visited Li's office again. Li refused to meet him and locked himself in the office. “Out of rage, Tian Xi jammed the lock of the hospital chief”.

At 16:00 of August 6, the local police arrested Tian without any explanation. On the next day, two documents were delivered to Tian's mother stating that Tian was under administrative detention for 15 days as a result of what he did to the hospital chief. On the following day, the police deferred the administration detention and sent Tian back home. But his family was under police surveillance. On August 17, the police arrested Tian again, this time under the criminal charge of destruction of property. The arrest document was issued on August 22.

Many believe that the arrest is a plot against Tian Xi as he has been a major target of “stability control”. According to the town government's report to the county government on July 9, Tian Xi

“近期连续两次在京非访(即非法上访),给当地政府对他的监管带来很大的不便。建议:公安机关介入,完善材料,予以打击。”

was engaged in two illegal petitions recently and gave the local government a lot of trouble in stability control. Suggestion: Police intervention is needed. Complete documentation needed for cracking him down.

NGOs and networks, such as Love Knowledge Action and China AIDS Group, have issued statements pleading for the release of Tian Xi based on humanitarian reason. Human rights lawyer also pointed out that criminal detention only applied to the destruction of property above RMB 5,000.

Tian Xi was born on January 3, 1987. In March 1996, when he was 9 years old, he had an accident and the doctor from Xincai county 1st People's Hospital claimed that Tian had a slight brain concussion and suggested blood transmission as a treatment. Since then, Tian Xi's body has become very weak. On July 12, 2004, Tian Xi found out that he was inflected with HIV in a blood test and he received free medication from the local clinic.

In September 2004, Tian's family made an appeal to the county court demanding a RMB1 million compensation but the case was rejected without any reason. Since then they started their petition journey to Beijing. In 2005, Tian was admitted to a university in Beijing and become an AIDS activist. He has been blogging about his journey of pursuing justice at TianXi with HIV.

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