As the article says, China’s much-publicized vows of greater assistance to AIDS victims often fail to mean anything in real life.

Chinese police have detained four HIV infected villagers in the AIDS-ravaged province of Henan after they tried to draw the attention of higher authorities to their plight, an activist said on Wednesday.

Beijing has pledged in recent months to give more treatment and help to afflicted citizens and their families, but these promises often ring hollow on the ground. Many people are still deprived of medicine and schooling.

Two of those detained, husband Wang Guofeng and wife Li Suzhi, were rounded up by police on Monday as they were making their way to the railway station in Shangqiu city to catch a train to Beijing, AIDS activist Li Dan told Reuters.

“They were planning to travel to Beijing to petition the health department. They are very unhappy that the promises that Beijing made were never kept,” Li said.

“They are angry at how their childrens’ school was shut and how they have not been given all the help that has been promised to them,” Li said by telephone from Beijing.

Last week, authorities in Shangqiu city shut the Orchid School that Li managed after he told them that he was going to Bangkok to join other activists in rallies and protests at the 15th International AIDS Conference in the Thai capital.

Li started the school late last year for children who were orphaned by AIDS or who had parents suffering from the disease.

Pardon me? Shut down his school because he was going to a conference? What’s going on?

The two others were arrested at a hospital where they were hoping to petition Hu Jintao, who they thought was visiting. Wang’s daughter tried to call the local police, but they claimed to have no knowledge of the case. Right.

Henan province, the original breeding ground for the Chinese AIDS epidemic thanks to its infamous blood-selling scandal, has quite a history when it comes to treating its AIDS victims like animals. This and past horror stories can be attributed to the local Communist authorities, though it would be reassuring to see those at the top intervene, even a little bit, to demonstrate that their promises to AIDS victims mean something. I’m not counting on it, as they’ve got more important things to do, like deciding what books to ban and which mobile phone text messages to censor.

(And yes, I know they do a lot more than that. But why can’t they put their money where their mouth is when it comes to a problem of this magnitude?)