Tong Ge accepted an interview with a French mainstream media

On November 17th 2008, the GHE chief expert Mr.Tong Ge was interviewed by a journalist of the French website “Oriental Culture Information”.

Mr.Tong Ge generally introduced the AIDS-related situation of domestic gay population, while elaborating the difficult journey from the 90’s in which they voluntarily fighted with social discrimination, promoted AIDS-resisting activities and the development of the gay community and volunteer organizations, against social prejudice and the pressure of protential risks.

He emphasized that we should not deny the progress the Chinese government had achieved in the HIV/AIDS prevention and control policies, especially regarding gay population. However, current problems in this field increasingly reflected the conflict among the offcial regime, underlying elements of  mainstream discrimination and corruption, and the backwardness in traditional subculture of the gay group, driven by the concept of “power and money”. On this aspect, there also existed intervention of some foreign influence and media.

With the urgent situation of AIDS dissemination, he really hoped that there would be less interference. If the HIV/AIDS issue had been used as bargaining chips for political games by politicians, it would have been a tragedy for common people as a whole. It was necessary to prompt the government to realize their “political promise”, while improving self management of civilian communities and their capabilities to participate into social movements, in order to prevent and control AIDS with collective effort.