World News

Compiled by Martin Flynn

‘Egypt is torturing people with HIV’

Using the New York based organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) who has accused Egyptian authorities of torturing and chaining HIV positive men in the country to hospital beds before forcing them to stand trial for their alleged homosexuality.

The human rights group highlighted the recent case of men arrested and given HIV tests without their consent. They were also subjected to forced anal probes to ‘prove’ their homosexual conduct.

Two men were then chained to their Cairo hospital beds, HRW alleged, whilst awaiting homosexuality charges, whilst others were arrested and beaten for refusing to sign confessions.

Police in the Egyptian capital are also alleged to have arrested and beaten more men whose details were on the original detainees’ mobile phones.

Four of the eight men arrested were jailed for a year for ‘Habitual practise of debauchery’, two remain in prison and the other two are still detained in hospital.

One of the men who tested HIV positive was alleged to have been told by a public prosecutor: “People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live.”

Although homosexuality is not included in Egyptian law, gay men in the country are increasingly facing violence, police brutality and prison sentences, under President Mubarak’s increasingly repressive police state rule.

“The government should end arbitrary arrests based on HIV status,” HRW said: “These shocking arrests and trails embody both ignorance and injustice.

“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.”

back to top of page