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Mexicans form Facebook group defending China's measures

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-14 11:12

MEXICO CITY -- A group of Mexicans living in China have created a group on social networking website Facebook to support the Chinese government in taking measures and quarantining Mexicans in China, in reaction to the outbreak of A/H1N1 flu here.

The group clarified that Mexicans are being taken good care of in China and have not suffered discrimination or xenophobia.

"The damaging view that has been given to the phenomenon in China has slowly been changing in the media, or at least there is more room for debate," said Ana Fernanda Hierro, the group's founder, who has lived in Beijing since 2007.

She added that since a national emergency was declared in Mexico in response to the flu on April 23, she has only received support from people in China.

Full coverage:  A（H1N1）Influenza Outbreak Related readings:  Mainland confirms second case of A(H1N1) flu  Mexico has thousands more flu cases: Study  Anti-flu measures tightened  Mexico flu anger hits Shanghai trade fair  Foreigners amenable to quarantine move

Other group members have written that they have been treated well during their stay in China, and that the 2002-2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) makes the measures taken understandable.

According to Mexican government data, the new influenza A/H1N1 flu, which causes headaches, high temperature, muscular pain and breathing difficulties, has killed 60 people and infected 2,446 in Mexico, giving a fatality rate of around 2.5 percent.

The group "Mexicans happy in China" said it was responding to the "media manipulation" and said they had not suffered discrimination or xenophobia.

The group is "for the friendship between our two peoples, so hurt by a great misunderstanding during this health emergency," the groups says on its welcome page.

Separately, Roberto Arcaute, one of the 136 passengers that arrived in Mexico last week in a plane sent by the Mexican government to pick up citizens that were in quarantine, told media here: "It was only a precaution and was in no way discriminatory."

Arcaute has lived two years in Beijing, working as an artist.

Melissa Jamin Beyer, who is studying at the Beijing Language and Culture University, told the Vanguardia newspaper from the northern Mexican city of Coahuila: "It is important to ask people to look at both sides of the situation before rushing to judgement. Needless resentment could damage the China-Mexico relationship."

She said it was hard to judge in this case because China has a duty to protect its population, and it did so.

"There were isolated occurrences caused by collective panic triggered by the importance the media has given the story and by the ignorance of one or two people who did not bother to get better informed before carrying out discrimination," said Beyer.