The Age
June 24, 2006

Fu Xiancai’s supporters could raise only 20,000 of the 60,000 yuan cost of the surgery. Police interfered with the collection of money. He was finally operated on 10 days after the attack, after German diplomats visited and paid for the operation.

Fu Xiancai lies paralysed from the shoulders down in Yichang No. 1 Hospital. It is by all accounts one of the best hospitals in central Hubei province, but like all state hospitals in socialist China, it is user pays. So when Mr Fu, an activist seeking compensation for villagers displaced by the Three Gorges dam, was bashed and left with a broken neck, he did not receive the time-sensitive surgery he needed immediately. … His family and supporters could only raise 20,000 of the 60,000 yuan cost of the surgery (about $A10,000) to repair his damaged and shattered vertebrae. Police interfered with the collection of money. Mr Fu was finally operated on 10 days after the June 8 attack after three German diplomats insisted on visiting him in hospital and paying for the surgery. Reporters Without Borders said the incident ran counter to China’s promise to allow the foreign media to operate with greater freedom. "Two years away from the 2008 Beijing Olympics it is extremely worrying that such brutal methods should be used to punish Chinese citizens who dare to speak to foreign journalists," the group said.