Recent arrests
and trials in Egypt of HIV-positive men endanger human
rights, an international watchdog group said Wednesday,
calling on authorities in the nation to release
those in custody and stop criminalizing AIDS.
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 Human Rights Watch. ''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 gays in this
conservative country. In the largest case to date in
Egypt, 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, one got three and
one five years, while the rest were acquitted.
In a report made
available to the Associated Press, Human Rights Watch
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, Human Rights Watch 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 homosexual
conduct, the organization 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, Human Rights Watch said. The
first two, reportedly both HIV-positive, are now held
in a Cairo hospital, handcuffed to their beds, the
group 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 the consent, Human Rights Watch
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 Feb. 2 by an appeals court. Their
lawyers told Human Rights Watch 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, the
organization said.
The cases reflect
that Egyptian police act on a belief that AIDS 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.''
(Katarina Kratovac, AP)
