News (Updated July 5, 2009)

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America to remove HIV visa ban after Briton's protest

Campaigner persuades Washington to alter laws that forced travellers to lie on entry forms

Sunday, 05 July 2009

A law that has in effect banned people with HIV from visiting America for two decades is to be overturned after a Briton with the virus accused the US of hypocrisy and discrimination during a major health conference.

Paul Thorn should have spoken at the Pacific health summit in Seattle last month, but was refused entry to the country after admitting his HIV status on his visa-waiver application.

He sent a powerful statement to be read out in his place. The message accused the US of having an HIV policy rooted in fear and said it had no right to call itself a world leader in the fight against the disease.

In the days after the conference Thorn's case was taken up by politicians including US congressman Jim McDermott. He wrote a letter to the Obama administration citing what had happened to Thorn and another case where people were turned back at the Canadian border. "Now is the time to repair our nation's standing as the leader in the treatment of the Aids epidemic," wrote McDermott.

Last week - less than a fortnight later - the US government decided to bring the ban to an end. Its proposal, "to remove HIV as a 'communicable disease of public health significance'," is likely to be in place by the end of the year.

"A lot of people have worked on this but it seems this was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Thorn, 38, a writer and adviser on TB and HIV issues from Brighton , who described the policy as grotesque. "I have lied in the past on the visa-waiver form, but this time I wanted to make a stand."

His statement read: "The US government gives people who have HIV one of two choices. The first is to actually be dishonest on the visa application or visa-waiver form, commit a felony by lying to US immigration, and become a criminal. The second choice is to be honest, and have a visa rejected because you are considered an undesirable person, and unfit to enter the US . To my mind either being a criminal or an undesirable isn't much of a choice. I don't want to be either."

Michael Birt, executive director of the summit, said he had been "saddened" by the news that Thorn was unable to attend. "However, his absence made an even greater statement about the challenges we still face to address HIV policy. And the impact, it seems, is that real change is under way so that perhaps others will not face a similar predicament in the future."

McDermott, a Democratic party representative for Washington state, acknowledged that George Bush had begun the process of repealing the law while president, but said the changes had never been implemented. "I am very pleased with this decision because it enables the United States to fully assume its proper leadership role in combating the scourge of HIV/Aids," he told the Observer, praising the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation.

Thorn, who campaigns for HIV and TB sufferers to gain access to treatment, said that he was amazed how quickly things had moved: "I am an advocate and I am used to advocacy being a very long process." He said he had written the statement in anger: "I tried to keep it as unemotional as possible, but it is quite barbed in places and it was clearly designed to cause embarrassment."

As someone who has been HIV positive since 1988, Thorn said he found the policy undermining: "I want this legislation to be in its grave for good." He pointed out that the question asking whether he was HIV positive on the visa-waiver form was alongside those asking if he was a terrorist or Nazi.

Rowan Harvey, parliamentary and campaigns manager at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said the law was unfair. "Imagine if you're HIV positive and you've not told your employer and you are then required to travel for work purposes," she said. She described one case in which a group of activists who were HIV positive were even banned from changing flights in the US .

Harvey said no other western countries imposed such a ban. However, China , Iraq , Sudan and Yemen were among a handful of countries that discriminated. "The idea that the ban might go within a couple of months is absolutely fantastic," she said.

Indian court rules gay sex legal

by Elizabeth Roche Thu Jul 2, 10:48 am ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) – A top Indian court issued a landmark ruling Thursday that decriminalised gay sex between consenting adults by declaring a colonial-era ban on homosexuality unconstitutional.

The decision by the Delhi High Court was hailed by gay activists here as a historic step in their struggle to achieve equal rights in a conservative society that largely regards homosexuality as a taboo illness.

The court ruled that the existing ban on homosexual acts was discriminatory and therefore a violation of individual rights guaranteed by the constitution.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1860 under a statute introduced by British colonial rulers that banned "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." Conviction carried a fine and maximum 10-year jail sentence.

Although prosecutions were rare, gay activists said police used the law to harass and intimidate members of their community.

"We are all very thrilled and happy," said Anjali Gopalan, executive director of the Naz Foundation, a gay advocacy group that had petitioned the court to overturn the statute.

"This is just the beginning. The battle will continue till every member of this community gets all the rights that an ordinary citizen has," Gopalan told reporters.

While the ruling is non-binding outside the Indian capital, it effectively leaves the government with the choice of appealing to the Supreme Court or repealing the law nationwide.

The decision was criticised by religious groups, particularly leaders of India 's Muslim and Christian communities, who staunchly opposed the move to legalise gay sex.

"This is absolutely wrong," said Ahmed Bukhari, imam at the Jama Masjid in Delhi , India 's largest mosque.

"We will not accept any such law," Bukhari said.

Father Babu Joseph, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, said the court's decision would make no difference to the Church's stand.

"While respecting the judgment of the court, we still hold that homosexuality is not an acceptable behaviour," he said.

In recent years, India 's homosexual community has raised its profile, organising gay pride marches in major cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai.

"I feel very proud to be an Indian today," said openly gay fashion designer Wendell Rodericks.

The Indian government has offered mixed messages on the issue, with some ministers speaking out in favour of the petition, only to be contradicted by others in the cabinet.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily declined to offer any immediate comment on Thursday's ruling, telling reporters at parliament that he needed to study the text properly.

Ashok Row Kavi, a prominent gay rights campaigner since the 1970s, told AFP from Bangkok , where he was attending a UN AIDS conference, that the court's decision opened a new era.

"I will return to India as a free gay man... free from extortion, violence and blackmail from the police, free from discrimination and free to access all health services," Kavi said.

The UN AIDS agency had supported the petition, arguing that decriminalising homosexuality would help India combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and encourage those affected by it to come forward and seek treatment and information.

India has an estimated 2.5 million people living with HIV.

Susan Timberlake, head of UNAIDS' human rights and law team, said "We think this will set an important precedence throughout the world."

New York-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the ruling, saying it was overdue.

"This legal remnant of British colonialism has been used to deprive people of their basic rights for too long," said Scott Long, director of the watchdog's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Programme.

"This long-awaited decision testifies to the reach of democracy and rights in India ," Long said.

Bollywood actress and gay rights campaigner Celina Jaitley said the ruling was historic.

"I'm overwhelmed," Jaitley told AFP in Mumbai.

"It's great not to be criminalised for being a human being and what you do in your bedroom," she added.

Economic crisis a 'major threat' to AIDS fight in Africa : UN

Thu Jul 2, 12:30 PM

SIRTE, Libya (AFP) - The global economic crisis poses a "major threat" to the fight against AIDS in Africa as funding for treatment programmes dries up, a top UN official said Thursday.

Michel Sidibe, the head of the UNAIDS agency, told reporters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Libya that 96 percent of Africans receiving AIDS medications depend on aid from rich countries.

"The global economic crisis is a major threat that could drive aid mechanisms toward collapse," he said.

The Global Fund against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis is already running a four billion dollar deficit, even as 2,500 people are put on treatment every day in Africa , Sidibe said.

"If the Fund doesn't remain solvent, sick people will start dying within six months," he said.

Sidibe said he hoped that the Group of Eight rich nations summit in Italy next week would stick to past promises, including the goal of providing universal access to treatment.

Six million Africans with AIDS are still awaiting treatement. Of the 500,000 people with HIV who die every year after also catching tuberculosis, 90 percent are Africans, he added.

Sidibe also praised "signs of hope" in South Africa, which sees 1,500 new AIDS cases every day, as the new President Jacob Zuma has publicly promised to prioritise the fight against the disease.

The country's AIDS programme was for years dogged by denialism under former president Thabo Mbeki, delaying the roll-out of medication for people with HIV.

The UNAIDS boss was originally scheduled to address African leaders at the summit, but he said his speech was cancelled due to "other priorities" at the talks, which have so far been dominated by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's push to create a powerful new pan-African authority.

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