By Chang Kun
Chinese activists have been using different types of social medias to
post their works and raise international awareness to assist special cases. Following
are examples of some public ways in which Chinese activists have automatic access
to information resources. In the past few years, because of the Internet and increasing
work in this sphere by some HIV/AIDS organizations, such as Beijing AIZHIXING
Institute, a lot of grass-root organizations have grown in skills on how to use
Internet tools for their work and community, especially for posting human
rights cases to increase attention.
Of course, websites and BBSes are very important ways for grassroots
organizations to communicate with their target population. At the same time, there
are a helpful tool to publicize about their work. There are thousands of
websites and BBSes being run from China, so do we need to use Google to gather
the information we want? Using search engines can waste a large amount of time
and do some less useful work. Additionally, because of internet censorship and
monitoring of internet information sources in Mainland China, some human rights
information is better accessed through more traditional websites or resources.
China AIDS
Group (mailing list)
China AIDS Group is a public Chinese Email list that was established in
September 2005 by the Xinjiang Snow lotus HIV/AIDS Institute, which was subsequently
shut down on October 18 2006. Up to now, there are 2,403 members in the group
and 4,803 messages have been posted by HIV/AIDS workers and activists from
different kinds of organizations, such as the LGBT, CSW, IDU, and PLWHA
communities. Some international organizations and foundations who work in China
also post messages. Every member can post messages freely, however, in order to
avoid spam China AIDS Group has managers who approve all the messages before
they are posted. They also assist those who want to join but have trouble to do
so, since reception of these messages is sometimes blocked in the Chinese
mainland.
There are two ways to access this mailing list:
a) China AIDS Group Blog https://chinaaidsgroup.blogspot.com: All posted messages
are archived here automatically. To access messages from China AIDS Group
without joining the mailing list, you could just browse the blog or subscribe
to its RSS feed.
b) Joining in the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/group/chinaaidsgroup:
Here you can register with your Gmail account. It is also possible to contact a
manager of China AIDS Group who will add your Email to the list.
China Rights Group (mailing list)
China Rights Group is another mailing list that was created when China AIDS
Group was blocked in Mainland China. It focuses on a variety of Human Rights
cases and activities. The main purpose of China Rights Group is trying to help
members to increase their awareness of responses and quick action. Currently
China Rights Group has 5,786 members from different countries who care for
China and the Chinese people. Actually, it is not possible to determine who is
who. However, it’s really a good way to get firsthand information fast and therefore
be able to take part in different activities.
Please visit the link: https://groups.google.com/group/ChinaRights
China HIV/AIDS Blogs RSS（Really Simple Syndication）
Currently there are efforts to build a website that collects all HIV/AIDS
activists blogs in order to increase the ability to easily access information
resources. So far we have collected over 60 blogs as our sources of information.
Building this website with RSS feed allows people to be informed about any
updates on any one of these blogs automatically. The website was created by
world-famous Chinese HIV/AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, founder and director of
Beijing AIZHIXING Institute.
Please visit the website: https://www.wanyanhai.org
In addition to the examples mentioned above, there are also other important
ways through which Chinese activists access
information, for example, the first AIDS wiki (https://www.aidswiki.org) and AIDS Rights: https://twitter.com/AIDSRIGHTS .
Chang Kun is a Human Rights activist working on HIV/AIDS, HBV and other public health issues. He is co-founder of the Beijing YIRENPING Center, which mission is to educate on disease prevention, provide assistance to people affected by HIV/AIDS patients, and to eliminate discrimination within the public health system. To find out more about him and his work, please visit his website at https://www.changkun.org
