UNAIDS must speak out against government restrictions on AIDS NGOs in Asia, Asia Catalyst said today at the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP). Physicians for Human Rights and over 30 international AIDS groups joined in calling on UNAIDS to take a stronger stand on the rights of front line AIDS organizations.
Read more: English press release (pdf)
By Carol Wang
One of the programs we get the most satisfaction from is our summer Haven Project, which places Chinese AIDS advocates in more established AIDS NGOs for a few weeks to a few months. This program builds connections between AIDS activists across borders, while helping Chinese partners – who represent the first generation of civil society leaders in China – to build their skills. This weekend, the first of five Chinese colleagues will make their way to Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
By Yu Fangqiang
This week’s blog entry is from Chinese lawyer and rights advocate Yu Fangqiang, who wrote this essay as part of our online colloquium on challenges for civil society in Asia. See the original post in Chinese and English, and responses at Asia Report.
In mainland China it is extremely hard to start up a non-governmental organization (NGO) without a background in government. The difficulties are due to restrictive government policies, monopolization of resources by NGOs with government background, a lack of trust throughout the overall society, the lack of capabilities among the grassroots’ organizations, and unrealistic expectations from funders.
Submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. Download the PDF.
[:en]By Josh Greenstein
Asia Catalyst’s recent report vividly depicted the barriers Chinese kids face to getting AIDS treatment that they need to survive. One key problem is that powerful U.S. based pharmaceutical companies have made some AIDS drugs extraordinarily expensive – including both second-line drugs that are essential for those who have built up resistance to the first line of AIDS medication, and pediatric medicines. The U.S. government has, until now, backed the pharmaceutical companies in their campaign to penalize countries that dare to invoke their rights to produce these medicines without patents. It is time for the U.S. government and big pharma to get out of the way and allow developing countries to give their citizens the life-saving drugs they desperately need.
