China frees SARS hero after months of house arrest

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A doctor who blew the whistle on China’s SARS cover-up in 2003 has been freed from months of house arrest but is barred from speaking to media or travelling abroad, a source close to the family said on Wednesday.

The government placed Jiang Yanyong, 73, in custody last year a few months after he wrote a bold letter to China’s top leaders asking for a politically sensitive re-appraisal of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the army in 1989.

He was allowed to go home after seven weeks during which he was forced to undergo “study sessions” but his movements were restricted for a further eight months.

"Since yesterday he has been able to go out ... It’s basically back to normal,” Jiang’s wife, Hua Zhongwei, said by telephone. The semi-retired military surgeon was in good health.

“It’s inconvenient to tell you about the other circumstances,” she said when asked if there were other curbs on Jiang, a hero to many Chinese for exposing the SARS cover-up that led to the sacking of the health minister and the Beijing mayor and prompted accurate reporting of the epidemic.

Jiang’s daughter accepted the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, on his behalf in Manila last August because the doctor was not allowed to travel abroad.

China’s decision-making Central Military Commission issued a directive on Tuesday “agreeing to remove measures taken against retired cadre Jiang Yanyong”, a source close to the family told Reuters.

But 10 restrictions were placed on Jiang, including curbs on speaking without permission to Chinese and foreign reporters, travelling overseas and attending activities at the invitation of foreign groups or individuals, said the source.

“He was told not to make any statements inconsistent with the party’s decisions at any time or under any circumstance,” the source said.

“He and his family were warned against writing or discussing circumstances of the period during which he was investigated,” the source said, adding that Jiang was required to attend party study sessions and report his thoughts.

In the eight months of house arrest, Jiang was barred from leaving a compound where active and retired doctors and nurses of the No. 301 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army lived.

Analysts said a reversal of the official verdict that the 1989 student-led demonstrations were a “counter-revolutionary” rebellion was unforeseeable in the near future. Hundreds were killed.

Rehabilitation of the protests could split the Communist Party and trigger a power struggle. Some top leaders involved in, or who benefitted from, the massacre are still alive or influential.

Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled as Communist Party chief for opposing the crackdown, died in January after more than 15 years under house arrest. 

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