Chinese Premiere urged to stop discrimination by HIV positive men
Three school teachers in China, who have alleged that they have been wrongfully thrown out of their jobs because of the fact that their employers have prejudices against them being HIV positive, have urged the Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao to end this kind of discrimination. The petition, which is one of its kind, was delivered to the State Council Legislative Affairs Office on Monday has boldly tested the promise of this country to establish the rule of Law.
The hope of the three men lies in the five year old law that seeks to protect the employment rights of the people suffering from AIDS and that this national Law will overshadow the local regulations that is inhibiting them from getting the job as they are HIV positive. A Nanjing based organization, Tianxia Gong, run by the individual named Yu Fangquiang told us that in one of the lawsuits filed in Guizhou, the judge instructed the plaintiff to ask the local government to solve the problem and that his lawsuit will not be accepted by the court. It also said,” The adherence to the country’s rule of law and the equality of its people is the country’s soul and is the backbone of the country’s modernization. Every Chinese citizen and every department will undoubtedly benefit from this and will not be subject to the threat of the unlawful deprivation of their legitimate rights and interests.”
The other two lawsuits filed individually in China by the two teachers against their local governments have been ruled against by the courts. In the 90s, Beijing was too slow to respond to the problem of HIV/AIDS at a time when hundreds of impoverished farmers of the rural Henan province were infected due to sub-standard blood selling policies. But now the government has started taking the issue very seriously and is now spending more money on the programs related to the prevention of the disease and on the schemes which give a universal access to the anti-retroviral drug which is used to inhibit the disease.
The petition filed by the three signatories comes just before the world AIDS day which is on December 1st. the petition will help to draft out and regulate the implementation of the law related to the issue. The signatories also told that they were hoping for a favourable response from the Chinese Premiere because he has shown concern at earlier instances by shaking hands and hugging HIV infected people.
