Wan Yanhai, the AIDS activist, disappeared August 24 in Beijing after attending a gay film festival. He is best known for exposing the tainted blood scandal in Henan Province, China, that has resulted in thousands of deaths of villagers. He also brought attention on the Unification Church's efforts at a conservative social agenda in China: the implementation of an abstinence-based sex education program there.
Subversity has learned he has been detained by central government authorities although there is no official confirmation as yet. The Washington Post has editorialized on his disappearance, and reports have appeared there, in the New York Times, Liberation (Paris) and the Los Angeles Times, CNN, BBC and on wire services around the world.
Wan was scheduled to receive an award from Human Rights Watch and an AIDS Law group in Montreal later this month. He was last on Subversity in 1998 to talk about political surveillance.
We chat with Xiao Qiang, executive director of the Manhattan-based Human Rights in China, onne of the many groups raising concern about Wan's situation.
In the second half of the program, we talk with Marissa Nuncio, program coordinator at the Los Angeles-based Sweatshop Watch, about what is the situation of faced by the thosands of sweatshop workers in the Golden State.
The show airs from 4-5 p.m. Pacific time today, Tuesday, September 3, 2002, on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, Calif., and on kuci.org via the Web.
To chat with our guests, call 949 824-5824 during the show. Resources
Human Rights Watch press release on Wan http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/drwan082902.htm Human Rights in China http://www.hrichina.org Award citation http://www.aidslaw.ca/Maincontent/awards.htm Washington Post editorial http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24663-2002Sep1.html Washington Post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9905-2002Aug29.html Wan's report on Henan http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/ChinaHealthNews-criticism.html Wan's previous interview on Subversity (second part of audio) http://falco.kuci.uci.edu/~dtsang/subversity/Sv980120.ram China's First AIDS, Gay Activist http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/wanfirst.html Photos of Wan http://falco.kuci.uci.edu/~dtsang/subversity/wanphoto.html Sweatshop Watch http://www.sweatshopwatch.orgDaniel Tsang, host