Reuters: Chinese doctor gagged for revealing SARS cover-up

BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) - China has gagged the military doctor whose revelation of the government's SARS cover-up led to dismissal of the health minister and open reporting of the spread of the deadly virus, his daughter said on Thursday.

Jiang Yanyong, 71, former chief surgeon at a military hospital in Beijing and a 50-year Communist Party veteran, had been told by the government not to give interviews to foreign media, Jiang Rui said.

"He is still free to move around, but has no freedom of speech," the 42-year-old software programmer told Reuters.

"In China, people who tell the truth have to pay a price," the daughter said by telephone from San Francisco.

Asked on Thursday if he could be interviewed by telephone, the doctor said: "I'm sorry. I cannot."

The gag order followed interviews with two top state media organisations. The semi-official China News Service last week credited Jiang for exposing the cover-up, but quoted him as saying he "did not come under any pressure or restrictions and life was as usual".

The official Xinhua news agency published a picture of Jiang's chauffeured car provided by the hospital on its Web site [...] on Wednesday, saying it was treatment accorded only to "experts".

But the daughter dismissed the reports, saying her father did not receive special treatment and had had the car for five years.

"My dad is very angry. He never said those things. They're just using him," she said.

Still, coverage of a whistleblower is remarkable in China. In one of the few reports on Jiang, the magazine Caijing, known for pushing the limits of government controls, labelled him "the honest doctor".

He now needs the approval of the People's Liberation Army, and not just the hospital, to speak to reporters. A hospital spokesman said any interview request had to be approved by higher-ups and none would be entertained for now.

"China does not want anyone to imitate him," Jiang Rui said. "He doesn't care if he is expelled from the Communist Party," the daughter said, but she did not say what might happen if Jiang defied the gag order.

Jiang Yanyong was born in Shanghai on October 4, 1931, the son of a banker. He studied pre-med at the now-defunct Yenching University, which was merged with Peking University after the Communist revolution in 1949.

He began working at the military hospital in 1957, but was branded a "counter-revolutionary" in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. He was banished to feed horses at a military-run ranch in the northwestern province of Qinghai.

In 1999, the 10th anniversary of the army crackdown on student-led democracy demonstrations, Jiang accused authorities of lying when they claimed not a single protester was killed on Tiananmen Square.

Jiang said then several protesters he treated died of gunshot wounds.

"He hated bitterly the putting down of June 4," the daughter said, referring to the date the demonstrations were crushed.

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