Hu Jia, one of the China’s most outspoken AIDS activists, has been under house arrest since May 22, in the lead up to the 15-year anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Hu has openly appealed to the government to redress the Tiananmen Massacre issue.

Hu believes that he was put under house arrest to prevent him from organizing events to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and also to prevent him from meeting with U.S. Ambassador to China, Clark Randt. Ambassador Randt recently visited the villages that were suffering the most from AIDS.

Police wait outside Hu Jia’s apartment on May 27 (AFP/Getty Images)

On April 15, 2004, Hu Jia brought flowers to the “Monument to the People’s Heroes” in memory of the 15-year anniversary of the death of former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang. While Hu was bowing at the monument, several police grabbed him and threw him into a police van.

As Party General Secretary, Hu Yaobang was a proponent of political reform and democracy. He fell out of then-Military Chairman Deng Xiaoping’s favor in 1987 for being sympathetic to an earlier student movement for democracy in 1986. His death from a heart attack in 1989 sparked the Tiananmen student movement that ultimately turned into a massacre.