Dear colleagues,
We need your signatures to an open letter on the ongoing arrest, harassment, beating and shutdown of AIDS activists and NGOs, esp. in Asia - it's concrete and urgent, as just this week one of our Chinese colleagues has been blocked by police from going to ICAAP-Bali
Please reply to info@asiacatalyst.org with your name, title and organizational affiliation by no later than August 3rd. We will release the letter to the press in advance of ICAAP-Bali. It's fine to forward this email.
Many thanks!
In solidarity,
Meg Davis
Asia Catalyst
www.asiacatalyst.org
Michel Sidibe
Executive Director, UNAIDS
Under Secretary-General of the United Nations
Avenue Appia 20
1211 Geneva, Switzerland
August 4, 2009
Dear Mr. Sidibe:
We are writing as concerned AIDS professionals to urge UNAIDS to address the continuing restrictions on frontline AIDS nonprofit organizations in Asia. While governments state their support for the work of NGOs in fighting AIDS, many colleagues on the ground face surveillance and intimidation. In too many countries, police detain harm reduction workers, jail AIDS activists; shut down websites and the offices of grassroots AIDS organizations. UNAIDS and international donors such as the Global Fund have kept quiet in public while our colleagues are imprisoned, threatened and beaten.
We need UNAIDS to issue a strong public statement about the need for governments to lift restrictions on AIDS NGOs and to stop jailing our colleagues in Asia.
Some recent examples:
In July 2009, a Chinese AIDS advocate and person living with HIV/AIDS who was invited by UNAIDS to the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Bali was prevented by police from traveling to the meeting, and warned that if he speaks to international organizations and media about his experience, he will "face the same fate as [jailed AIDS advocate] Hu Jia."
In July 2009, Yirenping, a Chinese legal aid center for people with hepatitis, was harassed by police.
In early 2009, a harm reduction worker with the Cambodian NGO Korsang was arrested by police and sent to Koh Kor, a former Khmer Rouge execution camp on an island, where she was kept for five days without charges. The facility lacked medical care, food, or basic hygiene.
In February 2009, the Malaysian AIDS Commission reported that harm reduction workers offering clean syringes are rounded up by police and RELA (the people's volunteer corps).
These are examples from the current year, but these kinds of incidents are all too common - not just in Asia, but internationally.
As you know, NGOs do essential work with the marginalized groups who are most vulnerable to the AIDS epidemic--children, women, men who have sex with men, drug users, sex workers, and ethnic minorities. Internationally, we know that outspoken AIDS advocates, especially those living with HIV, are responsible for much of the progress made in the fight against the epidemic since the 1980s.
States are bound by international human rights law to respect and protect the rights of all persons to freedom of association and freedom of expression, and numerous UN policies call on states to ensure free expression and community consultation as part of AIDS policy design.
Up to now, the international community has reacted to this pattern of arrests and detentions as if they were local problems, instead of addressing the problem proactively. Country offices of UNAIDS have been reluctant to speak out about individual cases for fear of jeopardizing access to government officials. But this is an issue that is not disappearing - government officials who repress NGOs are only emboldened by our silence.
We urge you to:
- Issue a strong public statement calling on all governments to reform policies that arbitrarily limit the registration and operation of AIDS NGOs;
- Raise these issues publicly in your country visits, so that AIDS activists know and hear of your support for their work;
- Meet in person with AIDS activists who are consistently harassed by police and the government during your country visits, to signal your support of their work;
- Press all countries, publicly and privately, to end the pattern of arrests and detention of AIDS and harm reduction workers; and
- Instruct country offices of UNAIDS to speak out, loudly and clearly, when AIDS activists are imprisoned and harassed by police.
A strong UN voice is essential to the survival of our colleagues in the field, and only a robust and free civil society will help Asia to win the war against HIV/AIDS.
Sincerely,
--
Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D. ("Meg")
Executive Director
Asia Catalyst
www.asiacatalyst.org
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