News by the HIV Justice Network

[Press release from the US Department of Justice] JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RELEASES BEST PRACTICES GUIDE TO REFORM HIV-SPECIFIC CRIMINAL LAWS TO ALIGN WITH SCIENTIFICALLY-SUPPORTED FACTORS WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that it has released a Best Practices Guide to…

In the lead-up to AIDS 2014, ten powerful thought-provoking films from seven countries over three days (18, 19 and 21 July 2014) will outrage Melbourne film-goers by exploring how laws and policies aimed at controlling, punishing or disempowering specific groups…

People living with HIV in Manchester appear to have little understanding of their rights and responsibilities under English law to avoid prosecution for ‘reckless’ HIV transmission, according to a study presented to the British HIV Association Conference in Liverpool earlier…

Last Friday, June 13, the Iowa Supreme Court set aside the ‘HIV exposure’ conviction of Nick Rhoades, who was initially sentenced to 25 years in prison, with required registration as a sex offender, after having a one-time sexual encounter with…

Living Positive Victoria, the organisation representing people living with HIV in the Australian state of Victoria, has launched a campaign for community and cross-party political support to reform the state’s HIV-specific criminal law, the only such law in Australia. Section…

After years of intensive debate and strong local and international advocacy against many of the problematic clauses found within Uganda’s omnibus HIV law, yesterday Uganda’s Parliament passed the HIV Prevention and Control Act virtually unchanged from this 2010 version. The…

Today, the Court of Appeal upheld David Golding’s 2011 conviction for ‘recklessly’ infecting his ex-girfriend with genital herpes (HSV-2) during a brief relationship.  However, his original 14 month sentence was reduced to three months (as time served, Mr Golding was…

More than 70 scientific experts Canada-wide have today released a consensus statement confirming when there is a low-to-zero possibility of a person living with HIV transmitting the virus in various situations. The statement was developed out of a concern that…

(Press release from One Iowa.  Further detailed analysis will be available soon) DES MOINES–After a series of negotiations, a historic bill passed through the Iowa House early this morning that will modernize Iowa’s discriminatory HIV law. Iowa’s current law, 709c,…

Earlier this month, Donald Bogardus, 42, was given the lightest-ever sentence for HIV non-disclosure in Iowa.  He had faced up to 25 years in prison but was given a suspended sentence with two to five years of probation. However, he…

The ongoing case of Rosemary Namubiru, the Ugandan nurse accused of exposing a child to HIV during the course of administering an injection, is highlighted in a powerful press release issued yesterday by AIDS Free World.  Fortunately, Ms Namubiru is…

A new publication from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), written by Veronica Oakeshott, is an excellent new resource to help inform advocacy efforts to remove punitive laws and policies that impede the HIV response. Aimed…

A newly published report suggests a number of concrete ways that research into the impact of overly broad HIV criminalisation on public health can move the policy agenda forward, and help reform laws and create better policies for people living…

On December 19th, the United States Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (fiscal year 2014) which, according to a press release from the Sero Project, “is a significant first step toward reforming the military’s HIV-related policies, and is the…

The African continent has more countries with overly broad and vague HIV-specific laws relating to HIV non-disclosure, exposure and/or transmission than any other global region, nearly all of which have been enacted in the past decade. Although North America is…

The events documented in Zoe Mavroudi’s powerful documentary, Ruins – now available to watch in full online with a choice of English, Finnish, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Swedish subtitles – are a ‘perfect storm’ of problematic criminal justice responses…

Sex, Lies and HIV: When What You Don’t Tell Your Partner Is a Crime by Sergio Hernandez, Special to ProPublica, Dec. 1, 2013. This story was co-published with BuzzFeed. [Un sommaire en français est aussi disponible ici] Nick Rhoades was…

For World AIDS Day 2013, Lambda Legal created a social media campaign on Facebook and on its own blog highlighting all the different ways the overly broad HIV criminalisation laws in the United States harm public health, result in unjust…

by Cecile Kazatchkine, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network On November 8 2013, the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia in Canada released a very encouraging decision in a case of HIV non-disclosure. A young man with an undetectable viral…

Today, the Court of Appeal for Skåne and Blekinge has acquitted a man from Malmö previously convicted of exposing four women to HIV on the grounds that since he had a stable undetectable viral load on antiretrovirall treatment with no…

EATG’s new position paper on prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, exposure and/or transmission published last week recommends that the criminal law should only be used in extremely rare and unusual cases where HIV is maliciously and intentionally transmitted and that Europe-wide…

Last month a 25 year-old female sex worker – a mother of two children – who was working in Sucre and Potosí, Bolivia, was sentenced to house arrest because she continued to work after being diagnosed HIV-positive. How, the Latin…

The HIV Justice Network has today released a new documentary, More HARM Than GOOD: How overly broad HIV criminalisation is hurting public health which had its world premiere at the US Conference on AIDS in New Orleans on September 10th….

A court in Barrie, Ontario has found a woman, ‘JM’ not guilty of aggravated sexual assault for not disclosing her HIV status before her male partner performed oral sex on her. The Barrie Advance reports that Justice Gregory Mulligan… ruled…