Postal worker Li Xige was detained by police in her home county of Ningling in the central province of Henan, said Wan Yanhai, director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, a non-governmental group.

Li, who was infected with HIV while giving birth to her first child in 1995, had appeared at the health ministry in Beijing on Tuesday along with eight other HIV sufferers, including a child, Wan said in a statement.

They had intended peacefully to petition the ministry for better compensation but apparently they were taken in by authorities and driven back to Henan on Wednesday, according to Wan.

On Thursday Li's family was informed that she had been officially detained on suspicion of "assembling crowds to attack state organs," Wan said. Two other participants in the failed attempt to petition the government were also detained, while the rest were under police supervision, he said.

Ningling county police declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP, saying they had not heard about the case.

For the crime of "assembling crowds to attack state organs," ringleaders can be sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, according to the penal code.

Li did not know she was infected with HIV when having her first baby 11 years ago. The child, a girl, died in 2004. A second child has also been infected.

She said she later found several women who got AIDS from transfusions at the same hospital in Henan.

An estimated 650,000 people in China had the HIV virus at the end of 2005, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations agency spearheading the fight against the disease.

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