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Egypt police 'widen HIV
arrests'
19 Feb 2008- Egyptian police have arrested four men suspected of
being HIV positive, bringing the total detained in a recent crackdown to
12, rights groups say.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last week that HIV-positive Egyptian men
had been chained to hospital beds and forced to undergo tests for the
virus.
The latest arrests took place after police followed up information
coerced from men already detained, HRW said.
The Egyptian interior ministry has not responded to the allegations.
In a joint press release, Amnesty International and HRW warned that
Egypt's efforts to prevent the spread of the deadly virus could be
seriously damaged by the arrests.
"This not only violates the most basic rights of people living with HIV.
It also threatens public health, by making it dangerous for anyone to
seek information about HIV prevention or treatment," said Rebecca
Schleifer, who works on HIV/Aids issues at HRW.
Two of the newly-detained men tested positive for HIV, and are awaiting
further hearings, HRW said.
Homosexuality 'tests'
The rights organisations say a wave of arrests began in October 2007,
when two men were arrested after a scuffle in central Cairo.
When one said he was HIV-positive they were taken to the police branch
which deals with issues of public morality, HRW said.
Both men said they had been beaten for refusing to sign statements
written by the police and subjected to anal examinations to "prove" that
they had engaged in homosexual conduct, the group said.
Two more men were arrested when police found their photographs and
contact numbers in the wallets of those detained, HRW said.
All four men, who have not been identified, remain in custody pending a
prosecutor's decision on possible charges.
Four further arrests were made in November when police raided the flat
of one of those being held, which had been placed under surveillance,
HRW reports.
Those four men were sentenced to one year in jail in January having been
convicted of "habitual debauchery", which Human Rights Watch says is a
euphemism used to penalise consensual homosexual acts.
Their lawyers claimed the prosecution had produced no evidence against
the defendants, who pleaded not guilty.
All those who have tested positive have been held, chained to their
beds, in Cairo hospitals, the rights groups said.
While not explicitly referred to in Egypt's legal code, homosexuality
can be punished under several different laws covering obscenity,
prostitution and debauchery.
Egypt has come under repeated criticism by both human rights groups and
the international community for its treatment of homosexual people.
"These cases show Egyptian police acting on the dangerous belief that
HIV is not a condition to be treated but a crime to be punished," Gasser
Abdel-Razek, HRW's acting director of regional relations in the Middle
East, told the BBC.
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