Case Highlights “Weak Supervision” of “Special Group”—Defendants w/ HIV/AIDS

揭开特殊人群监管软肋

Xinhua News, 2009-04-08

After damaging a Shenyang (Liaodong Province) police station and threatening officers with a knife taken from the station's kitchen, repeat offender, drug addict and HIV/AIDS patient Guan Lihong was allowed to walk free with the knife and injure the same victim he had been taken to the station for hurting. The next day Guan threatened and attempted to hurt another person, Qiu Fusheng, involved in the original altercation. Qiu wrestled the knife from Guan and stabbed him to death. He has been charged with intentional homicide but has pleaded not guilty by reason of self-defense. The case highlights four “bottlenecks” judicial organs face in supervising and detaining defendants with HIV/AIDS: police fear of become infected due to a lack of effective protection procedures; a severe shortage of detention centers capable of safely and “sanitarily” holding HIV/AIDS defendants; insufficient medicine and medical equipment for treating infected defendants while in detention; gaping legal loopholes restricting police and court powers, for example, China's national detention center regulations stipulate that centers “should not accept criminals with highly infectious diseases.”