BEIJING (Reuters) 2002-07-12 21:08:17

A group of artists and academics in China have posted Internet notices petitioning the Communist government after the authorities forced a private AIDS centre to shut, a Hong Kong rights group said on Friday.

Some 18 people penned the petitions after a private AIDS centre offering counselling to China's growing number of HIV sufferers was forced to shut for unspecified reasons, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said.

The centre run by Wan Yanhai had been registered legally under the auspices of an unnamed institute which had been threatened by government officials to cut ties with the centre, Wan told Reuters.

Wan declined to comment on official reasons for the move but said it may have been linked to a United Nations report published at the end of June which said the country faced an AIDS catastrophe.

"It may be possible that the U.N. report offended the Chinese government and they decided to take a harsher stance against private groups," Wan said by telephone.

The institute informed Wan it would no longer shelter the centre on July 1, rendering it illegal and forcing it to close, the rights group said in a statement.

China has awoken to the threat of AIDS following two decades of economic reform that have unleashed a lively trade in sex and drugs and went public with its battle against AIDS last year.

In April, Chinese health officials said an estimated 850,000 people had contracted the HIV virus, an increase of more than a quarter of a million over last year's figure, but analysts think the real figure could be much higher.

As the world's biggest AIDS conference gears up to close in Spain on Friday amid calls for fresh impetus to fight the disease, state-run Xinhua news agency touted a series of measures adopted by the world's most populous country in its fight against AIDS.

Children admire a giant inflatable condom as part of an exhibition for World AIDS Day 2001 in Guangzhou. A group of artists have staged an Internet protest against the enforced closure of a privately run AIDS centre in China. REUTERS/China Photo

China had improved healthcare of AIDS patients and improved the management of blood transfusions in recent years and had introduced long-term plans to keep the number of Chinese HIV/AIDS sufferers below 1.5 million by 2010, Xinhua said.

The U.N. report in June estimated that by 2010, the number infected with HIV could rise to 10 million if no effective countermeasures are taken and said China had not done enough to fight the disease.

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