Plot thickens on Egypt’s HIV crackdown

Cairo Prosecutors have, on 4 March 2008, handed down new indictments against five of the 12 men arrested for being HIV positive, a condition that is automatically associated with homosexuality in the anti-homosexuality Egypt.

Charged with "habitual practice of debauchery", a term used in the Egyptian law to prosecute consensual sex acts between men, one of the men faces an additional charge of facilitating the practice of debauchery for the other men.

While four others had already been sentenced to one year imprisonment on 13 January 2008, charges against the remaining three have been dropped as they tested negative after forced HIV tests and anal examinations by Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), before issuing indictments, the lead prosecutor told the defendants' lawyer that the men should not be allowed to "roam the streets freely" because the government considered the "a danger to public health."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch warned, on Tuesday 11 March, that the new indictments violate the men's basic rights and deeply undermine Egypt's fight against HIV and AIDS."These misguided prosecutions reveal official ignorance and prejudice about HIV. Prosecuting people for their HIV serostatus will frighten Egyptians from seeking treatment or information about prevention of HIV and AIDS", Joseph Amon, Director of HIV and AIDS program at Human Rights Watch said.

Expressing his concern, Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme said "the authorities should not be prosecuting them, but rather investigating the abuse and ill-treatment metered out against them and taking steps to ensure that such abuse does not happen again."

In a statement, HRW pointed out that the Egyptian law, used to prosecute adult consensual same-sex sexual conduct, violates protections for privacy and against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

"The UN Human Rights Committee holds that both sexual orientation and HIV serastatus are grounds protected against discrimination under the ICCPR's provisions. Individuals held solely on the basis of alleged consensual same-sex relations between adults in private, are victims of arbitrary detention, who should be released immediately and unconditionally", HRW concluded.