Being a whistle-blower in China could mean going to jail

According to Chinese media sources a farmer who reported bird flu outbreaks to the central government has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for fraud and blackmail.

The man Qiao Songju, who has a goose farm in the eastern province of Jiangsu, was apparently arrested a month after he reported bird flu outbreaks in the nearby province of Jiangsu in October.

He has apparently denied most of the charges, but no explanation has been given with regard to who had been blackmailed or whether the charges were linked to his bird flu reports, which were in fact correct.

It has been reported that the farmer supposedly used such measures as fabricating facts and hiding truth to swindle public and personal property and has been punished for these two crimes.

Only last month Chinese media reported that the government was considering fining media outlets that reported emergencies, such as riots, natural disasters and outbreaks of disease such as SARS or bird flu, without authorization.

This is of concern because China's record of transparency in such matters is murky to say the least and the country has a long history of covering up emergency incidents, and imposing news blackout over what they regard as sensitive issues which reflect in a negative manner on the image of the ruling party.

Meanwhile the Chinese Ministry of Health says it is conducting tests in order to confirm whether a man died of bird flu in 2003.

The tests are seen as a response to a letter published by eight Chinese scientists in a June 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine which said that the bird flu virus was isolated in a 24-year-old man who died in Beijing in 2003.

The ministry has apparently made contact with the eight scientists.

The man died in November 2003, four days after being hospitalized with pneumonia and respiratory disease and his death at the time was attributed to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) despite tests showing negative for SARS.

China was at the time experiencing an outbreak of the syndrome.

Studies later on the specimens taken from the man were comparable with the influenza A (H5N1) viral strains from China and other countries and it is now suspected that the man died from bird flu.

China reported its first human bird flu case in November, 2005; to date China has reported 19 cases, among which 12 have died.