Recent arrests
and trials in Egypt of HIV-positive men endanger human
rights, said an international watchdog group Wednesday,
calling on authorities here to release those in
custody and stop criminalizing HIV.
The New
York-based Human Rights Watch also urged Egypt to
overturn the convictions of four men sentenced for
''habitual practice of debauchery'' -- a term used in
the Egyptian legal system for consensual homosexual
acts -- and to free four others held pending charges.
''These shocking
arrests and trials embody both ignorance and
injustice,'' said Scott Long, head of a gay rights program
at HRW. ''Egypt threatens not just its international
reputation but its own population if it responds to
the HIV/AIDS epidemic with prison terms instead of
prevention and care.''
Rights groups and
the international community have repeatedly condemned
Egypt for trying gays.
Homosexuality is
not explicitly referred to in the Egyptian legal code,
but a wide range of laws covering obscenity, prostitution,
and debauchery are applied to homosexuals in this
conservative country. In the largest case to date
here, state security arrested 52 gay men on a floating
restaurant on the Nile River in 2001. Twenty-three were
sentenced to two years in prison, two got three and
five years, while the rest were acquitted.
In a report made
available to the Associated Press, HRW highlighted
recent arrests in the Egyptian capital, sparked by one man's
admission he was HIV-positive. Authorities have not
commented on the cases.
The arrests began
last October, HRW said, when police stopped two men
arguing on a downtown Cairo street. After one of them told
the officers he was HIV-positive, police detained both
and opened an investigation against them for
homosexual conduct. The two later told human rights
activists they were beaten after refusing to sign already
written confessions, held handcuffed to an iron desk
for four days, and subjected to forensic examination
to ''prove'' they engaged in same-sex conduct, HRW
said.
Police soon
arrested two more men whose photographs and telephone
numbers were found on the first two detainees. All
four remain in custody pending a prosecutor's decision
whether to raise charges. All were subjected to HIV
tests without their consent, HRW said. The first two,
reportedly both HIV-positive, are now held in a Cairo
hospital, handcuffed to their beds, HRW added.
Then, in
November, police arrested four more men found living in the
apartment of one of the first four detainees. These second
four were charged with homosexual conduct and also
tested for HIV without consent, HRW said. One of the
four reportedly said that the prosecutor, when
informing him he had tested HIV-positive, told him: ''People
like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to
live.''
These four were
convicted in mid-January for ''habitual practice of
debauchery'' and sentenced to one-year prison terms, a
sentence upheld February 2 by an appeals court. Their
lawyers told HRW that the prosecution produced no
evidence against the defendants, who pleaded not
guilty. One of the four convicted is also held in a Cairo
hospital, chained to his bed, HRW said.
The cases reflect
that Egyptian police act on a belief that having
HIV is a crime that should be punished, Long said,
adding that ''HIV tests forcibly taken without
consent, ill treatment in detention, trials driven by
prejudice, and convictions without evidence all violate
international law.'' (AP)
