AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

FACTS OF THE CASE:

A Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for intentionally infecting over 400 children with H.I.V. This is the second time that a Libyan court has sentenced the 6 health workers to death: an earlier death sentence was overturned by the Libyan Supreme Court in 2005. The health workers have been held in Libya since 1999.

In February of 1998 Bulgarian nurses and doctors began work at the Al Fateh Children’s Hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city. By August 1998, children at the hospital had begun testing positive for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. An official investigation by the Libyan government concluded that the infections had been concentrated in the wards where the Bulgarian nurses had been assigned. Dozens of Bulgarian medical workers were arrested, and a videotaped search of one nurse’s apartment found vials of H.I.V. infected blood.

According to a Libyan intelligence report submitted to the court, several nurses confessed to intentionally infecting their patients. However, two of the five nurses said that they were tortured into confessing and their defense lawyers have long argued that the children had been infected with HIV before the nurses began working at the hospital.

This November 2006, British medical journal The Lancet argued that the retrial of the nurses was a gross miscarriage of justice with no legal or medical foundation. The report cited independent scientific evidence that the infections were caused by bad hygiene at the Benghazi hospital, and reports from human rights watchdogs such as Amnesty International that confessions had been extracted under torture.

Col. Qaddafi has also publicly charged that the health care workers acted on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

The medical workers were originally sentenced to death in May 2004. However, after energetic protests by international human rights groups, Bulgaria, the United States and the EU, Libya’s Supreme Court overturned the death sentences and ordered a new trial. In addition, the EU also agreed to establish an international fund to cover medical care and other costs of assisting the H.I.V.-infected children. Following the recent verdict and sentence, Emmanuel Altit, a French lawyer in Paris who worked on the defense team, was quoted in the New York Times to say that: “The question of torture by electricity, proof that the nurses had been beaten, sexually harassed, kept for six months without contact, the question of fabricated evidence — none of this was discussed at all. The court refused to hear our experts.”

RELEVANT HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

• Article 14(1): All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him [or her], or of his [or her] rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
• Article 7: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Article 05: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send faxes, letters, or emails:

• Expressing your extreme concern about the death sentences handed down to five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for allegedly infecting children with the HIV virus in a Libyan hospital;

• Expressing your extreme concern with reports that the medical workers were subject to torture while in detention.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

His Excellency Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi
Leader of the Revolution
Office of the Leader of the Revolution
Tripoli
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
LIBYA
Salutation: Your Excellency

His Excellency Muhammad Misrati
Secretary of the People's Committee for Justice and General Security
Secretariat of the People's Committee for Justice and General Security
Tripoli
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Libya
Salutation: Your Excellency

Dr. Muhammad 'Abduallah al-Harari
Secretary for Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the General Peoples' Congress
P.O. Box 84662
Tripoli
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
LIBYA
Salutation: Dr. Abduallah al-Harari

Mr. Ali Suleiman Aujali
Minister
Libyan Liaison Office
2600 Virginia AVE NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20037
Fax: 202-944-9606
Salutation: Dear Mr. Minister

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street , NW
Washington DC 20520
email via webform:
http://contact-us.state.gov/cgi-bin/state.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=uMxC5h3i&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li=
Fax: (202) 647-4000 (TEL)
secretary@state.gov
Salutation: Dear Madame Secretary

Please send copies of your appeals, and any responses you may receive, or direct any questions you may have to Josh Robbins, AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, 1200 New York Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20005; tel. 202-326-6797; shrp@aaas.org; or fax 202-289-4950.

The keys to effective appeals are to be courteous and respectful, accurate and precise, impartial in approach, and as specific as possible regarding the alleged violation and the international human rights standards and instruments that apply to the situation. Reference to your scientific organization and professional affiliation is always helpful.

To ensure that appeals are current and credible, please do not continue to write appeals on this case after 90 days from the date of the posting unless an update has been issued.

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