Top Chinese epidemiologist asks citizens not to touch foreigners to avoid monkeypox, faces backlash
Beijing, Sep 18: A top Chinese health official has warned citizens against having skin contact with foreigners and recent returnees from abroad to avoid contracting monkeypox, triggering a social media backlash for his racist and discriminatory remarks.
China on Friday reported its first case of monkeypox in Chongqing city after a person who arrived from abroad developed rashes while in COVID-19 quarantine.
Following this, China's top epidemiologist Wu Zunyou warned citizens not to have skin contact with foreigners and recent returnees from abroad to avoid contracting the disease.
To prevent possible monkeypox infection, and as part of our daily healthy lifestyle, [I] advise 1) don't have skin-to-skin contact with foreigners; 2) don't have skin-to-skin contact with people who have returned from abroad [in the past three weeks], suggested Wu, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
He also advised the public not to have skin-to-skin contact with strangers and to use disposable toilet seat covers in public facilities, including in hotels, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.
Wu's suggestions were ridiculed by many Chinese internet users, with some saying that they found them racist and discriminatory .
How racist is this? What about the ones like me who have been living in China for almost 10 years and we haven't seen our families in like 3-4 years due to the borders being closed, an user wrote on Weibo in response to a Global Times post about Wu's recommendations.
Another Weibo user said she found Wu's description very inappropriate .
There are still so many foreign friends working in China. At the beginning of the epidemic, some foreign friends stood up and used social platforms to tell everyone that Chinese people are not viruses', she said.
The user further wrote that Chinese people should not now remain silent when many foreigners are facing discrimination in the country, the Post reported.
Another Weibo user wrote, Is he (Wu) referring to a sexual relationship or just skin-to-skin contact? I guess he meant the former. But it is inevitable to have handshakes when you meet foreign guests. It's also hard to avoid skin contact on the bus.
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Surat LS candidate Nilesh Kumbhani whose nomination form was rejected suspended from Congress
Ahmedabad, Apr 25: The Gujarat Congress on Friday suspended from the party for six years its Surat Lok Sabha candidate Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to the BJP's Mukesh Dalal getting elected unopposed.
A statement from the Congress said the party's disciplinary committee decided to suspend Kumbhani after thorough discussion, adding it had come to the conclusion that the nomination form was rejected due to gross negligence on his part or "in connivance with the BJP".
"To be fair to you we have given time to you to explain your case but instead of coming before the party disciplinary committee you have gone incommunicado. After your form was rejected by the authorities, BJP went ahead and got form of other eight candidates withdrawn. This has deprived people of Surat their voting rights," the Congress disciplinary committee headed by Balu Patel said.
"People of Surat and party workers have become very angry due to your action and are expressing their anger in different ways. The Congress party has decided to suspend you for six years from the party," the press note said.
Kumbhani's nomination form was rejected on April 21 after his three proposers submitted affidavits to the district returning officer claiming the signatures on the document was not theirs.
The nomination form of Suresh Padsala, the Congress' substitute candidate from Surat, was also invalidated on the same grounds.
In his order, Returning Officer Sourabh Pardhi said the three nomination forms submitted by Kumbhani and Padsala were rejected after prima facie discrepancy was found in the signatures of the proposers and they did not appear to be genuine.
Kumbhani, a former corporator from Surat, had unsuccessfully fought the 2022 Assembly polls from Kamrej there.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was elected unopposed from Surat Lok Sabha constituency on April 22 after all other nominees, including one from BSP, withdrew from the fray one by one on the last day of withdrawing papers.
