Zhou Yichao was finally executed last Tuesday.

About 11 months ago, the 22-year-old college senior took the public servant recruitment examination in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and his score was among the highest.

That should have heralded an exciting launch to the civil service career he had coveted for so long.

Then his application was rejected after he tested positive for the hepatitis B virus (HBV) during a routine health check.

The desperate Zhou stabbed the two officials responsible for shattering his dream, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

Last Tuesday Zhou paid the ultimate price for what he did.

Unlike others convicted of homicide, Zhou inspired a great deal of pity for his misfortune and dissatisfaction with the discriminatory hiring practices, and for the lack of legal redress.

Around 10 percent of China's 1.3 billion residents are HBV carriers, many of whom like Zhou do not show any symptoms and therefore pose no threat to co-workers.

Yet these people often find themselves discriminated against when it comes to education, employment, healthcare and many other aspects of life.

While many sharing his frustration simply accept the injustice, Zhou staged a violent protest, bringing the long-neglected issue to public awareness.

A website entitled "Gandan Xiangzhao," which literally translates as "liver and gall are close together" and "treat each other with sincerity," has been established to advocate equal treatment for "HBVers" - the name they've given themselves.

A proposal signed by 1,611 citizens was submitted to the country's legislative and administrative institutions last November, asking for a check-up on the governments' anti-Constitution hiring practice and calling for legal protection of HBV carriers.

Zhang Xianzhu, another graduate rejected by a State employer after being tested positive in his hepatitis B test later the same year, filed the country's first HBV discrimination lawsuit against the government of Wuhu, a city in east China's Asnhui Province, last December.

Besides HBV discrimination, there are many other dubious practices in the recruitment of public servants, such as setting limits on applicants' height, gender, marital status, schooling and residency.

A 1.48-meter tall woman surnamed Fan, who had been hired as a temporary tax-collector for eight years, sued her work unit, the Shenzhen Taxation Bureau, after it refused to offer her a permanent public servant position allegedly because of her small stature.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court passed a judgement last month - two years after the charge was made - that the case would not be heard. The court said matters concerning personnel recruiting by the government are not within its jurisdiction.

According to the Rules for Recruitment of Guangdong Provincial Civil Servants, males must be at least 1.6 meters tall and females must be above 1.5 meters to qualify.

Though statistics show the average height of Chinese people in 2000 was 1.697 meters for men and 1.586 meters for women, the rights of people who are relatively short should not be violated.

Another widely-reported case in the past few months concerns the great number of people in Chongqing Municipality who gained their diplomas through self-study and government-organized examinations.

When recruiting staff, the local government required the applicants to be full-time graduates from universities, excluding self-study diploma holders.

China's higher education self-study examination program started two decades ago and about 2.95 million people have gained their diplomas nationwide in this way.

An efficient way to improve the country's educational level and overall quality of human resources, self-study has long been encouraged in our society and is written into the Constitution.

And a regulation on higher education self-study examination issued by the State Council declares that self-study diploma holders shall get equal treatment.

But certainly it is difficult for self-study graduates to be treated equally in society, as sometimes even government departments do not follow the rules.

According to the Constitution, every citizen enjoys an equal right to employment. There is no legal basis for any form of discrimination on any grounds when it comes to working.

Such discrimination hurts not only its direct victims. It backfired when Zhou found himself deprived and marginalized.

Fortunately, his sacrifice has led to revelations about the prevalence of discrimination and has helped spur some improvement.

Provinces of Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan and Jiangxi have lifted their ban on non-infectious HBV carriers being employed by government agencies. Height requirements in some recruitment regulations have also been eliminated.

But there is still a long way to go.

An equal treatment act is needed to realize the constitutional rights of all citizens, and government departments and public institutions should lead the way in removing discrimination.

And men or women, young or old, short or tall, should not tolerate any form of discrimination, because sooner or later we are all likely to fall victim to this insidious practice.

(China Daily March 9, 2004)