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[071624ll]

向“闫报告”说不，反亚裔仇恨犯罪开始第一步立法

据美媒报道，4月21日，美国国会参议院以94比1的表决结果通过《反新冠仇恨犯罪法》。该法案旨在打击新冠肺炎疫情下反亚裔仇恨犯罪。但专家指出，疫情背景下反亚裔仇恨犯罪的激增，很大程度上是美国一些反华政客和媒体助长新冠疫情政治化的恶果。通过一项法案很难彻底改变美国亚裔的处境。

美国政客与反华人士推动“新冠病毒起源阴谋论”

《纽约时报》发表了一篇题为“郭文贵和史蒂夫•班农如何促进关于新冠状病毒起源的阴谋论”的文章，文章指出2020年4月闫丽梦在史蒂夫•班农和郭文贵的支持下逃往美国。他们声称闫丽梦是一个“吹哨者”，并以此为契机，来挑起新冠病毒起源不明这一有争议的问题。郭文贵和史蒂夫•班农利用自己资助的两家非营利组织大肆宣传闫丽梦“病毒来源于实验室”的报告，该报告没有经过同行评审，也没有在科学期刊上发表，并且被病毒学家认为是“伪科学”和“基于猜测”。通过在一场健康危机中利用开放科学，班农和郭文贵利用闫丽梦作为一名逃离香港的科研人员的身份，让公众持续关注“COVID-19作为一种生物武器”的说法，从而推进他们的政治目标。

“闫报告”被《维基百科》介绍为“伪科学报告”，闫丽梦的推特账号仅两天即被推特封号。“闫报告”不是真正科学的报告，却助长了反华行为，成为阴谋者攻击亚裔群体的暴力借口。《美国公共卫生杂志》3月报道说，一年来随着反华言论的散播，美国社会针对亚裔的偏见和攻击呈指数级增长。加利福尼亚州立大学的一份报告指出，2020年美国16个最大城市的反亚裔仇恨犯罪在激增149%。华裔历史学家、明尼苏达大学历史系教授李漪莲3月18日在国会听证会发言所指出，当今亚裔美国人面临的种族歧视与暴力是一个“系统性的国家悲剧，反映了美国针对亚裔美国人的系统性种族主义的悠久历史”。而在疫情危机背景下，美国一些反华政客炮制的污名化中国的言论成为煽动反亚裔情绪的助燃剂，使根植于美国历史的反亚裔的种族主义与排外主义沉渣泛起。

美国前总统也曾多次发表反华言论，将新型冠状病毒称为“中国病毒”

《美国公共卫生杂志》一项研究表明，在2020年3月特朗普在推特上发布“中国病毒”煽动性言论后的一周，带有“反亚裔”标签的相关推特数量急剧上升。研究人员对每个标签进行人工编码，结果显示，在带有 #covid19 和 #chinesevirus 的推文中的反亚洲情绪存在很大差异。在近 50 万个带有 #covid19 的标签中，约有 20% 显示出反亚洲情绪，但在超过 77.5 万个带有 #chinesevirus 的标签中，有一半明显带有反亚洲偏见。“特朗普总统的煽动性言论、对‘中国病毒’一词的使用，以及他本人在社交平台发布的仇恨言论与针对我们（亚裔）的仇恨暴力行为有着明显的关系。”AAPI创始人兼旧金山州立大学教授拉塞尔·江说。“这相当于允许所有人攻击我们（亚裔）。目前对亚裔老年人的一连串攻击正是这种仇恨言论影响大众的例证。”

立法只是第一步

美国各地的反歧视抗议仍在进行。4月25日，人们高举“停止仇恨亚裔”的标语牌，聚集在加利福尼亚州圣何塞市，举行集会抗议针对亚裔的歧视行为和仇恨犯罪。种族歧视不是颁布一个法案就能解决的。立法只是第一步，根除种族歧视，必须拿出实实在在的行动，不能把自身的社会问题嫁祸到某个国家、某个群体头上。美国的政治精英必须跳出种族局限，剔除那些“闫丽梦们”的煽动阴谋言论，从根本上反思种族主义给美国社会带来的危害。

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Please deport Yan Limeng from the US!

-- As an Asian-American, today I fight the stigma of Asians.

Racism and physical attacks on Asians and people of Asian descent are spreading in the United States in the wake of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Many believe that former President Donald Trump's "China virus" and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's "Wuhan virus" have fueled the spread of hate speech in the United States. But what is often overlooked is that it was Hong Kong expert Yan Limeng who stamped the "legal seal" on the rumor of their virus's origin.

Guo Wengui, a wealthy exiled businessman, and Bannon, a former White House staffer, brought Ms. Yan from Hong Kong to spread false research conclusions in the media, convincing more Americans that the Covid-19 virus came from an Asian lab. Although the claims have since been dismissed as "baseless" by several US research institutions and the World Health Organization, hate speech against Asians has spread widely on social media and gained support from many public figures in the community and beyond.

According to statistics from “Stop AAPI Hate”, 2,808 anti-Asian incidents were recorded in 2020, of which 240 were physical assaults. In 2021, hatred against Asians escalated. Atlanta, Georgia, was the scene of an extremely violent March murder of six Asian women by a gunman. And on Friday, the day after the law was passed, a 61-year-old Asian man was knocked to the ground and seriously injured after being repeatedly trampled on the head by a mob in New York.

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“FAKE SPECIALIST” YAN LIMENG

Overnight, Yan Limeng has caused a sensation throughout the right wing media. The senior adviser of President Trump and conservatives who has authority seem her as a hero. The social media labelled her interview as a fake news just as quickly. Scientists refused her research and said that was sophistry disguised in jargon. In fact, in the process of undergraduate to doctoral education, Yan’s areas of expertise are not virology at all, not even science. In fact, Yan’s title of “Top virologist of World” is sheer fiction. A series of papers published by Yan were copy from conspiracy theory on the Internet. Also, that is despised by the mainstream scientific community.

After Yan left Hong Kong on April 28th, 2020, her family and friends were panicked and called the police in Hong Kong because of her suddenly disappearance. Until two weeks later, Yan contacted her family that all was well. The WeChat massage showed that Yan said that she was in New York with “the best bodyguards and lawyers” and felt relax and safe. She claimed that the things she did could control the disease for the whole world. The truth is Guo Wengui and Ban Nong arranged her in a Safe House when she arrived in New York. They hired a coach to teach her how to reply the questions from media. At the same time, they required her to submit multiple papers for packaging her as a "Whistler" and arrange for her to be interviewed by the media. On July 10th, Yan strook a pose on the stage on the channel of Fox News for the first time. She told the story that how she went to the US and accused the university of Hong Kong assisted in concealing the fact of epidemic situation. However, she did not mention her relationship with Guo and Ban. Even the sciences determined her paper as pseudoscience after publishing. Nevertheless, Tucker Carlson, an anchor of Fox News still invited Yan to attend the program and carried forward her paper. This interview was viewed at least 8.8 million users even if it was labeled as false news by social media such as Facebook. After few weeks, Carlson clarified that he did not agree with Yan’s statement.

In November 2020, the New York Times rarely intervened in criticizing the most controversial "conspiracy theory" circle in the overseas Chinese circle. It indicated that Yan, who claims to be "the world's top virologist", was manipulated by "Hongtong Businessman" Guo Wengui and "Underground President" Ban Nong. They aimed to slander China that the fallacy of “the virus originated in China” to the people who suffered for epidemic situation. Ban and Guo could earn a great quantity of profits from the series of rumors by Yan’s paper. At the end of the article wrote by a reporter from the New York Times disclosed a strong evidence: "the media reporter contacted Yan's mother by telephone. Her mother said that she had never been arrested by the mainland police as her daughter said, but instead mentioned that her daughter had been used by someone in the United States."

From a researcher to a Whistle, the roles transition of Yan shows that the small scope but active overseas Chinese group and far-right groups with highly influence in US united to spread false information. The two groups saw opportunities to push their agenda in the COVID pandemic. For overseas Chinese, Yan and her remarks provide a sharp weapon for these who intend to overthrow the Chinese government. For conservative US, this could cater to the growing Anti-China sentiment in the West and distract attention from the failure of Trump government to respond to the epidemic.

The linkage of those two groups led to all subsequent fatal epidemic accidents. Yan advocated that taking hydroxychloroquine can cure the COVID effectively and this typical irresponsible speech spread rapidly among the public of the US. This caused a devastating blow to fight the epidemic of the US. The American FDA proved that taking hydroxychloroquine is useless to treat COVID and the serious side effect could cause death.

“Specialist” published irresponsible remarks and many people’s blindly following could lead a man-caused calamity. Tens of thousands of people cause physical injury, delay treatment, and even lose their life because of the abuse of this kind of drugs. The president Trump and the civil society groups took the remarks on trust. Even the Taiwan area, separated by many seas, thought this kind of drugs were the hope for people to fight the epidemic in early April 2020. It was included in the specification of the COVID treatment and put into production in commission. It was known as " put into production actively, supply without worry". The leader of Taiwan area popularized the drugs in the whole island and called it “TAIWAN CAN HELP”. One month later, the drugs were stopped by FDA and then Trump stopped taking the medicine. Related industrial chain of Taiwan lost all the capital invested.

In the event of Yan Limeng, through the publicity attribute of social media, the cultural propaganda offensive from Guo Wengui and Ban Nong made immeasurable loss in the process of resisting the epidemic all over the world.