Egyptian Doctors
Denounced for Breaching Medical Ethics

A coalition of 117 human rights groups worldwide is denouncing not only Egypt for arresting and detaining HIV-positive men for the "habitual practice of debauchery" but also many of the detainees' doctors, who participated in the illegal crackdown. Five men scheduled to face trial in Cairo on April 9 are part of a group of at least 12 who have been jailed since October 2007 simply because they are living with HIV or AIDS. According to international group Human Rights Watch, the crackdown occurred with the participation of medical personnel. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch wrote an open letter to Egypt's health ministry and the Egyptian Doctors' Syndicate, reprimanding doctors for their breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality.

"Doctors must put patients first, not join a witch-hunt driven by prejudice," Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released Monday. "Now more than 100 human rights groups are reminding Egyptian doctors of the oath they took to respect patients' privacy, autonomy, and consent. This is one of the oldest traditions of medical responsibility, as well as an obligation under human rights law."

Doctors in Egypt take an oath based on the Geneva Declaration of the World Medical Association, which says doctors must not use the medical knowledge of a patient to "violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat."

The arrests began last year when one man who was stopped on the street by police during an altercation notified them he was HIV-positive. Police arrested him and the man with him, assaulted them, and interrogated them to obtain the names of other HIV-positive men, according to HRW. Each man was charged with the "habitual practice of debauchery," or consensual sex between two men.

Doctors from the health ministry also subjected the detainees to HIV tests without their consent, according to the press release. The prisoners who tested positive for the virus were held in hospitals and chained to their beds, being released from the chains only after publication of their treatment and the resulting public outcry.

A Cairo court convicted four of the 12 men arrested, sentencing them to a year in prison on January 18. On February 2 their sentences were upheld by an appellate court. A month later, Cairo prosecutors indicted five more men, who face trial on Wednesday. The charges against the remaining three men were dropped. (The Advocate)