At the UNAIDS high level policy consultation on HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission meeting in Oslo, Norway on February 14, 2012, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé was characteristically frank in his comments prior to viewing Sean Strub’s short film, HIV is Not a Crime, and hearing comments from Robert Suttle (who is featured in the film).
Video courtesy of Sean Strub and filmed by Nicholas Feustel (georgetownmedia.de). Read more about the meeting in Sean’s blog at Poz Magazine.
Advocates working to end inappropriate criminal prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, potential exposure and non-intentional transmission from around the world explain why they support the Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation.
Video produced for the HIV Justice Network by Nick Feustel, georgetown media.
(7 min, My Fabulous Disease, USA, 2012)
What if you could witness a face-to-face confrontation between a man living with HIV and the sex partner accusing him of not revealing his status? Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on that wall? The fireworks could be mighty, as emotions raged between the furious accuser and the positive person trying to defend his actions. What might that meeting look like, exactly?
In this video, you’re about to find out.
Read more at Mark’s brilliant blog, My Fabulous Disease.
Public television stations across the United States aired Perpetuating Stigma, an episode from the award-winning documentary series In The Life, in February 2012. This special report investigates the injustices that arise when a person’s HIV status becomes a crime, with a focus on how women have been stigmatized and prosecuted under these laws.
Perpetuating Stigma features HIV positive women whose personal stories challenge the theory behind HIV criminalization laws and expose the reality of their impact.
“In The Life’s decision to continue coverage of HIV criminalization, specifically with a report on women, is motivated by the lack of a fair media perspective on this issue,” stated Michelle Kristel, executive director of In The Life Media.
In The Life’s 2011 report, Legalizing Stigma, was the first on a national US TV channel (PBS) to look at the issue of HIV criminalization from the perspective of people targeted by criminal laws. The segment led to public education efforts, beginning with the first ever Congressional Briefing on this issue.
On February 8, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear two landmark cases on the issue of criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure in R v. Mabior and R v. DC. The Court’s decisions in these two appeal cases will have profound implications not only for people living with HIV, but also for Canadian public health, police practice and the criminal justice system.
There has been a marked increase in the frequency and severity of criminal charges for HIV non-disclosure in Canada where more than 130 people living with HIV have been charged in less than 15 years. This includes numerous cases in which their activity posed no significant risk of HIV transmission. Simply put, this is a miscarriage of justice.
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network is calling for signatories from international organisations and professionals working on issues related to HIV and public health and/or law to endorse the following statement by Wednesday, Feb 1st at 5:00 p.m. EST.
IN ADVANCE OF LANDMARK SUPREME COURT CASE, SUPPORTERS WORLDWIDE CALL ON CANADA TO STOP CRIMINALIZING PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV
Monday, February 6, 2012 – Canadian criminal law requires people living with HIV to disclose their status before engaging in behaviour that involves a “significant risk” of transmitting the virus. Yet people have been charged, and convicted for not disclosing their status, even though their activity did not pose a significant risk of HIV transmission. This is a miscarriage of justice. Further, it has contributed to a climate marked by anxiety, fear, stigma and misinformation that undermines HIV counselling, education and prevention efforts. This puts all Canadians at greater risk.
On February 8, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear two landmark cases on this important issue. We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that the Court use this opportunity to explicitly reconfirm that people living with HIV are not criminals in cases where the threshold of significant risk is not met – including cases where condoms are used or the HIV positive person was being successfully treated with antiretroviral drugs. We ask that the Court instruct lower courts that significant risk must be determined on the basis of the best available scientific evidence, not on assumptions, prejudice or fear.
Finally, we call on the provincial and territorial Attorneys General to follow suit and adopt guidelines to limit prosecutions in cases of HIV non-disclosure. These prosecutions are not helpful in putting an end to this epidemic, and the radical over-extension of the criminal law is counter-productive and damaging.
Please send your signature as you would like it to appear on the signatory list – including your name, organisation, title and geographic location – to info@aidslaw.ca. If your organisation will sign on in full, please indicate that as well and include the French translation of your organisation’s name if available.
If you are an individual without an organisational affiliation or professional designation and you would like to also endorse this statement please do so to the email address above.
For more information on criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure in Canada, please visit http://www.aidslaw.ca/stopcriminalization.
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A man in Austria is taking a case to the Constitutional Court that challenges the forcible testing of blood for HIV (as well as for use in phylogenetic analysis) that was legalised on 1 January 2012 through an amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2011. He is being supported by Rechtskomitee LAMBDA, whose president, Dr. Helmut Graupner, is also his defence counsel.
Full details of the case, and the problematic application of this law, from the Rechtskomitee LAMBDA press release issued today are included in full below (English version is slightly modified from the original release; German is the original.)
From 1 January 2012: Forced Hiv-Testing: Rechtskomitee LAMBDA supports case in the Constitutional Court
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2011 also amended the Criminal Procedure Code. It makes forcible HIV-testing legal as of 1 January 2012, despite the fact that the Constitution prohibits taking blood by force. A case has already been brought to the Constitutional Court.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2011, passed by federal parliament in October 2011, legalizes taking blood by force in order to prove the misdemeanor of Endangering Human Beings by Transmittable Diseases (§ 178 Criminal Code). Up to now forcible blood taking (in the case of not intoxicated defendants) had been restricted to sexual felonies or other felonies incurring a maximum penalty of five years.
Since 1 January 2012 this changed, despite the fact that the Constitutional Court prohibits forcible blood withdrawals, as no one may be forced to supply his body as evidence against him. The first case challenging this new power of the criminal police has already been taken to the Constitutional Court.
The applicant, who has no criminal record, is HIV-positive and asks the Constitutional Court to strike down the amendment. The state prosecutor has started proceedings against him under § 178 CC after another HIV-positive man had accused him of infecting him with HIV. Indeed the two men had sex with each other years ago, but in accordance with the safer sex rules propagated by the Ministry of Health and the AIDS Service organisations (oral sex without ejaculation into the mouth).
Blackmailed and reported to the police
The accuser, who has a massive criminal record of violent, drug and property offences, reported the defendant to the police years after the sexual contact and only after the man refused to fulfil his considerable financial demands. In addition the accuser admitted during his interrogation that he had unprotected sex with others, and he had searched for casual sex (“sexdates”) in the internet displaying in his profile the information “Safer Sex: Never”. Even more so the man, according to his own depositions, is addicted to heroin and thus had been exposed also to other ways of transmission than the sexual one.
The case against the accuser (for aggravated blackmail) has been dropped immediately after the interrogation of both men due to “conflicting depositions”. Not so the case against the defendant for endangering by transmittable diseases (which offence is fulfilled just by engaging in unsafe sex without the necessity of causing infection). Also in regard to this offence there were “conflicting depositions” but the prosecutor wanted a blood test (for phylogenetic analysis).
Potential for conviction of innocents
A phylogenetic analysis however cannot prove an infection. And phylogenetic analyses bear the risk of false results and misinterpretation at the expense of a defendant. There are no standards (guidelines) so far for such analyses in forensic context and its results unfortunately again and again are misunderstood and misinterpreted by the courts. UNAIDS and the EU-Fundamental Rights Agency for years have been highlighting this.
So the man did not agree to blood withdrawal from him as he fears, because he is innocent, to be wrongfully convicted on the basis of such a blood test. Since 1 January he now is facing the danger of forced blood taking at any time. Therefore he has addressed the Constitutional Court.
“It is incredible that the governing coalition passed this unconstitutional law,” says president of Rechtskomitee LAMBDA (RKL) and defence counsel of the man, Dr. Helmut Graupner, “As too often we again have to hope for the Constitutional Court”.Seit 1.1.2012: Zwangs-Hiv-Tests: Rechtskomitee LAMBDA (RKL) unterstützt Antrag an den Verfassungsgerichtshof
Das Terrorismuspräventionsgesetz bringt auch eine Novelle der Strafprozessordnung. Seit 1.1.2012 sind gewaltsame Blutabnahmen bei Verdacht einer Ansteckung mit Hiv zulässig, obwohl die Verfassung zwangsweise Blutabnahmen verbietet. Eine Beschwerde liegt bereits beim Verfassungsgerichtshof.
Mit dem im Oktober 2011 verabschiedeten Terrorismuspräventionsgesetz wurden Zwangsblutabnahmen bei Verdacht des Vergehens der Gefährdung von Menschen durch übertragbare Krankheiten (§ 178 Strafgesetzbuch) erlaubt. Bisher waren zwangsweise Blutabnahmen (bei nicht berauschten TäterInnen) nur bei Verdacht auf ein Sexualverbrechen oder auf ein (anderes) Verbrechen zulässig, das mit mehr als 5 Jahren Freiheitsstrafe bedroht ist.
Das ist seit 1. Jänner anders, obwohl der Verfassungsgerichtshof zwangsweise Blutabnahmen verbietet, weil niemand gezwungen werden darf, seinen Körper als Beweismittel gegen sich selbst zur Verfügung zu stellen. Die erste Beschwerde gegen die neue Befugnis der Kriminalpolizei liegt bereits beim Verfassungsgerichthof.
Der unbescholtene Antragsteller ist Hiv-positiv und beantragt die Aufhebung der Gesetzesnovelle. Die Staatsanwaltschaft (StA) hat gegen ihn ein Ermittlungsverfahren wegen des Verdachts gem. § 178 StGB eingeleitet, weil ihn ein anderer Hiv-positiver Mann beschuldigt, ihn mit Hiv angesteckt zu haben. Tatsächlich hatte der Mann mit diesem anderen Mann vor Jahren einvernehmlichen sexuellen Kontakt, jedoch entsprechend den vom Gesundheitsministerium und den Aids-Hilfen propagierten Safer Sex Regeln, also mit Sexualpraktiken, bei denen eine Ansteckung nicht möglich ist (Oralverkehr ohne Ejakulation in den Mund).
Erpresst und angezeigt
Der mehrfach wegen Gewalt-, Suchtgift- und Vermögensdelikten vorbestrafte Anschuldiger hat die Anzeige, in der er ungeschützten passiven Analverkehr behauptete, erst Jahre nach dem sexuellen Kontakt erstattet und erst nachdem der Beschuldigte nicht bereit war, seine erheblichen finanziellen Forderungen zu erfüllen. Zudem hat er selbst in seiner Einvernahme angegeben, anderweitig ungeschützte sexuelle Kontakte gehabt zu haben und hatte er im Internet flüchtige sexuelle Kontakte („Sexdates“) gesucht mit einem Profil, auf dem angegeben war: „Safer Sex: Niemals“. Darüber hinaus ist dieser Mann nach seinen eigenen Angaben heroinsüchtig, und war daher, außer dem sexuellen noch anderen Übertragungswegen für eine Hiv-Infektion ausgesetzt.
Das gegen den Anschuldiger (wegen des Verdachts der schweren Erpressung) eingeleitete Strafverfahren wurde „wegen der widerstreitenden Aussagen“ sogleich nach Einvernahme der beiden Männer eingestellt. Nicht jedoch das Verfahren gegen den Beschuldigten wegen des Verdachts der Gefährdung durch übertragbare Krankheiten (wofür bereits unsafer Sex ausreicht, ohne dass es zu einer Ansteckung gekommen ist). Auch hier bestanden widerstreitende Aussagen, jedoch begehrte der Staatsanwalt eine Blutuntersuchung (phylogenetische Untersuchung).
Gefahr der Verurteilung Unschuldiger
Eine phylogenetische Untersuchung kann aber eine Ansteckung nicht beweisen. Und phylogenetische Untersuchungen bergen das Risiko falscher Ergebnisse und von Fehlinterpretationen zu Lasten des Beschuldigten Es gibt (noch) keine Standards (Richtlinien) für die Durchführung dieser Analysen zu gerichtlichen Zwecken und ihre Ergebnisse werden von Gerichten leider immer wieder missverstanden und fehlinterpretiert. Darauf weisen UNAIDS und die EU-Grundrechteagentur seit Jahren hin.
Der Mann hat daher einer Blutabnahme nicht zugestimmt, weil er befürchten muss, auf Grund der Testergebnisse unschuldig verurteilt zu werden. Seit 1. Jänner muss er nun jederzeit die gewaltsame Abnahme einer Blutprobe fürchten und hat sich daher an den Verfassungsgerichtshof gewandt.
„Es ist unglaublich, dass die Regierungsparteien, gegen die Opposition, diese verfassungswidrige Regelung beschlossen haben“, sagt der Präsident des RKL und Rechtsanwalt des Antragstellers Dr. Helmut Graupner, „Es bleibt, wie so oft, die Hoffnung auf den Verfassungsgerichtshof“.
(8 min, Zero, USA, 2012)
This short film is part of Sero’s ongoing documentation of the experiences of people with HIV who have been prosecuted for “HIV crimes”. To see a growing collection of individual interviews please visit Sero’s video page.
Following on from yesterday’s post on advocacy efforts underway in Sweden, other Nordic countries and Switzerland, my friend and colleague, Matthew Weait, Professor of Law and Policy
at Birkbeck College, University of London is about to undertake an important new research study in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden next Spring.
With Matthew’s permission, I’m replicating the note he sent me with all the details and further background. If you can help, please contact Matthew directly, or leave a comment on my blog.
The Decriminalization of HIV Transmission and Exposure: Advocacy, Activism and Law Reform in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing to ask if you would be willing to assist in a research project that I will be undertaking in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in March / April 2012. The project is summarised and discussed in more detail below, but put at its simplest it will be exploring the ways in which HIV activists and others have sought to reform criminal law concerning HIV transmission and exposure in the region. My aim is to improve our understanding of advocacy and activism in this field, and to gather evidence about what works and what doesn’t. Although we have an increasing amount of data about the effects of criminalization, there is very little evidence about how civil society has responded to criminalization, and I am hoping this project will not only provide that evidence but assist people elsewhere in their reform efforts.
As explained below, the research will be conducted primarily through interviews with those who have been involved in reform efforts, and I would like to speak to as many people as possible during my time in your countries.
If you are willing and able to participate I would be very grateful if you could contact me and let me know where and when it would be convenient to meet. I would also appreciate any advice about who else I should try to contact (including, if possible, politicians, lawyers etc who have been involved). I will be in your cities between the following dates:
9/3 – 18/3
Copenhagen
18/3 – 23/3
Oslo
23/3 – 30/3
Helsinki
30/3 – 5/4
StockholmI am funding this research project myself (though I am hoping to get a travel grant from the Wellcome Trust). It is not sponsored in any way.
I very much hope to hear from you soon.
All best wishes
Matthew
Summary of Project
The project will explore recent initiatives by Scandinavian civil society organizations and activists to the criminalization of reckless and negligent HIV transmission and exposure in the region. Despite having levels of HIV prevalence which are among the lowest in Europe, survey data indicates that the Scandinavian countries have among the highest rates of criminalization (as measured by convictions per 1000 people living with HIV (PLHIV)). This is not only counter-intuitive, when research shows that these are countries which have lower than average imprisonment rates and that their citizens are, in general, less punitive in their attitudes towards offending behaviour than those elsewhere in Europe, it ignores UNAIDS best practice guidance on the use of criminal law as a response to the epidemic. The principal goal of the project is to contribute to our understanding of the effectiveness or otherwise of law reform strategies in the field of HIV and public health. If, as experts agree, the inappropriate use of criminal law impedes HIV prevention efforts and contributes to the stigmatization of PLHIV, it is important to understand the dynamics of, and barriers to, legal reform.Background
The European region is suffering from an epidemic of criminalization. Across the continent, people living with HIV are being investigated, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for non-deliberate HIV exposure and transmission, contrary to the best practice guidance of UNAIDS and other international organizations concerned with preventing the spread of HIV and promoting the health and human rights of PLHIV. It is an epidemic that is impeding efforts to normalize HIV and reduce stigma and to affirm the importance of shared responsibility for sexual health. It is an epidemic whose impact is felt especially by people who already experience particular social and economic exclusion and vulnerability. It is an epidemic that, in theory at least, has created some 2.2 million potential criminals in Western and Central Europe.Although all but a few countries in the region have laws which criminalize HIV transmission and exposure, the scale and intensity of their enforcement is not evenly distributed. Based on available data relating to HIV prevalence and convictions per 1000 PLHIV, there is a marked difference between the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Sweden) and those further south. The former, despite having significantly lower HIV prevalence than the European average, have a markedly higher rate of criminalization. Sweden and Denmark, for example, have conviction rates of 6.12 and 4.66 per 1000, while the rates for France and Italy are 0.1 and 0.74 respectively.
There is a number of possible explanations for this increased resort to criminal law in Scandinavia compared with elsewhere (including higher levels of inter-personal trust, greater confidence in judicial institutions, and a tradition of robust public health laws), but whatever the causes are, it has resulted in concern among HIV activists and civil society organisations (CSOs) in the region, who have – over the past few years especially – mobilised in efforts to repeal and reform laws and / or constrain their enforcement.
Research Questions
This research project is concerned with the work of these activists and CSOs, and specifically with understanding:
- what their motivations for legal reform have been;
- how they have organised nationally and regionally to try and achieve that reform;
- how they have developed their policy agendas
- whether, and if so how, they have engaged and communicated with both (a) PLHIV and key groups especially vulnerable to HIV infection and (b) the wider population to achieve “buy in” and broader legitimacy for reform efforts;
- how they have engaged with policy makers, politicians, and government;
- the political, institutional and other barriers to reform; and
- what the results and consequences of reform efforts have been to date, and what they anticipate for the future.
Aims
These questions all focus on an attempt to understand better the ways in which civil society responds to the impact of law on PLHIV. By focusing on a region in which punitive law has been deployed disproportionately, and where there established and comparatively well-resourced organisations, the research will contribute to our understanding of how expert groups committed to HIV prevention and human rights protection mobilise in the face of what they perceive as a threat to the constituents whose interests they represent. In so doing, the research will provide original data about the dynamics of health activism and the impact of activism on law and policy. Two further aims are to provide a practical resource of value to HIV activists and organisations elsewhere in Europe and a record that will contribute to the oral history of the HIV epidemic in Europe.Matthew Weait’s Background in the Area
I have worked and published in the field of law and HIV for more than a decade, specifically in the area of criminalization. For the past five years I have been involved at an international level with work on this subject: as a consultant for the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, HIV in Europe, WHO Europe and UNAIDS, and as an invited expert at their criminalization policy development meetings, and most recently as a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the UNDP-led Global Commission on HIV and the Law. As a contributor to the policy development work of these organisations I have contributed to a number of important outputs, including a report on a rights-based approach to HIV in the EU (2010), the WHO Europe Technical Consultation on the Criminalization of HIV and other STIs (2007), and the UNAIDS Criminal Law and HIV Policy Brief (2008). For the Global Commission I was commissioned to write the Report on Criminalization of HIV Transmission and Exposure across the world. In October 2011 I was invited to give evidence to the Working Group of the Norwegian Law Commission that has been tasked to consider reform of its transmission and exposure laws, and in November 2011 I gave a plenary lecture on this subject at an international sexual health conference in Stockholm. In addition to this policy work I have published widely in peer-reviewed journals, both alone and with colleagues in other disciplines, and have written a monograph on the subject. All of this has impressed on me the importance both of understanding the dynamics of law reform in the field, and of developing a stronger, empirically grounded, evidence base. I see this project as a small, but significant, attempt to do both these things.Methodology
The research will be qualitative, based primarily on semi-structured interviews and supplemented by policy and other documentation produced by respondents and their organisations. The analysis will be undertaken using grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, various dates), coding the data in order to generate concepts and categories so that a theory of law reform initiatives in this particular area may be developed. It is also intended that the original interviews be made available (subject to participant consent) as a non-academic activist resource.Relevance of the Project to Policy and Practice
As explained above, the project is highly relevant to policy and practice and will make an original and significant contribution to our understanding of the ways in which HIV activists feed into and influence (or fail to influence) law reform. In using the data to develop a theory of law reform efforts in the particular area of HIV criminalisation it is hoped that the research will provide a resource of use to researchers interested in health policy making and activist participation more generally; in making available the raw interview material as audio, it is hoped that the research project will provide a resource for activists in other countries and regions who wish to learn about the experience of the Scandinavian peers.
In Sweden, the Communicable Diseases Act requires people with diagnosed HIV to disclose in any situation where someone might be placed at risk and to also practise safer sex (which, in Sweden, means using condoms – the impact of treatment on viral load and infectiousness is not yet considered to be part of the safer sex armamentarium.)
But in Sweden you’re damned if you do (disclose) and damned if you don’t because Sweden is one of several countries in western Europe – including Austria, Finland, Norway, and Switzerland – where people with HIV can be (and are) prosecuted for having consensual unprotected sex even when there was prior disclosure of HIV-positive status and agreement of the risk by the HIV-negative partner. Sweden uses the general criminal law for these prosecutions of which there have been at least 40 – out of an HIV population of around 5,000.
And if you think the Swedes aren’t being overly harsh, then watch the harrowing documentary, ‘How Could She?’ about a young woman, Lillemore, who was in such denial that she did not tell anyone that she was HIV-positive (including the doctors who delivered her two children). Even though both children were born HIV-free, and no-one was harmed by her non-disclosure, following the break-up of her marriage, her ex-husband reported her to the authorities and she was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Fortunately, most of these countries with overly-draconian policies towards people with HIV are well advanced in the process of examining (and hopefully, changing for the better) such laws and policies.
Norway has set up a special committee to examine whether its current law should be rewritten or abolished: its recommendations are due in May.
Switzerland is currently revising its Law on Epidemics, to be enacted later this year, and, according to my sources, the latest version appears to be mostly consistent with UNAIDS’ recommendations.
In 2010, Austria’s Ministry of Justice conceded that an undetectable viral load is considered a valid defence, even if they say individual judges can ignore their recommendation, although much more could still be done to remove the legal onus for HIV prevention on people with HIV.
And Finland has established an expert group on HIV/AIDS within the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare with the aim to ensure legislative reform, and address laws and polices that reinforce stigma and discrimination.
But Sweden – which has the most HIV-related prosecutions per capita of people with HIV in Europe (and probably the world) and that’s not including the 100+ more people with HIV who have been forcibly detained and isolated under the Communicable Diseases Act – is lagging behind, and continues to enforce its ‘human rights-unfriendly’ policies.
Fortunately, civil society is fighting back. In 2010, HIV-Sweden, RFSU (the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education) and RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) began a three-year campaign to raise awareness and advocate against Sweden’s over-punitive HIV-related policies.
A recent conference held just before World AIDS Day put together by the campaign and attended by police, prosecutors and politicians highlighted the many human rights concerns over Sweden’s current laws and policies. I was honoured to be one of only two non-Swedes to speak at the meeting (which was held mainly in Swedish – so a big thank you to Elizabeth, my personal “whisper” translator) – you can see the agenda and download a copy of my presentation here.
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| Download Google translated version of full article here |
The meeting and associated campaign received a lot of press coverage, including the front page of the biggest circulation morning paper in Sweden on World AIDS Day.
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| Download ‘HIV, Crime and Punishment’ |
At the meeting, HIV Sweden, RFSL and RFSU launched an important new manifesto, ‘HIV, Crime and Punishment‘ that clearly explains what the problems are for people with HIV (and public health) in Sweden and asks for three actions from the Swedish Government:
Let’s hope that Sweden’s policymakers take heed. After all, how can a country which supports UNAIDS’ global efforts, and is perceived to be a global champion for human rights around the world treat people with HIV in its own country as second class citizens?
Don’t think Sweden is that bad? Check out the 2005 case of Enhorn v Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights which found that Sweden had unlawfully isolated a man with HIV for a total of seven years, a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, ‘right to liberty and security of person’.
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