Grave-Flattening Campaign in Henan Destroys AIDS Evidence

Communist authorities in Henan Province are bulldozing graves to destroy evidence of an AIDS epidemic they oversaw.
Grave-Flattening Campaign in Henan Destroys AIDS Evidence
In Houyang Village, Henan Province, Gao did a survey of children born after 1996 from AIDS infected parents, and found that 38 percent had contracted AIDS. Courtesy of Gao Yaojie
Updated:
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/91201180917228.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-322604" title="91201180917228" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/91201180917228-600x450.jpg" alt="Gao Yaojie speaks at Washington, D.C.'s National Press Club" width="590" height="442"/></a>
Gao Yaojie speaks at Washington, D.C.'s National Press Club

A controversial policy of “tomb-flattening” in central China is destroying evidence of the AIDS epidemic, experts and activists say. Millions of peasants’ grave sites that surrounded villages where many died from the disease have been bulldozed flat in order to turn graveyards into farmland.

Data recently provided by local officials indicates that more than 2 million graves have been leveled since March, according to Shanghai Morning Post. Local authorities in Zhoukou City, Henan Province, claimed that turning graveyards into farmland will increase farmers’ income.

However, Dr. Gao Yaojie, one of China’s foremost AIDS experts, recently pointed out another reason the authorities have leveled so many tombs: to thoroughly destroy evidence of the AIDS epidemic in those areas.

“The deceased cannot talk. But the graves are their last testimonies that they contracted AIDS from selling their blood. This is how the tomb-removal campaign has come about after more than a decade,” she said in an article she wrote.