PHR Action Center
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Call for the Release and Exoneration of the Health Workers in Libya Facing a Wrongful Death Sentence
Regardless of where you're from, PHR urges you to contact Senators Joseph Biden (incoming Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee) and Patrick Leahy (incoming Chair of the Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee) to urge them to work with Congress and the Administration to exert more pressure on Libya to release and exonerate the health workers. For maximum impact, please also follow up your email with phone calls to Senators Biden (202-224-5042) and Leahy (202-224-4242).
Dear [ Decision Maker ] , Recently, ten major US medical and public health associations, representing hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses and health experts, wrote Libya's Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi to express their deep concern about the unfair trial and death sentence of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician wrongfully convicted of intentionally infecting children with HIV in a Libyan hospital. You can read their letter at http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2007-03-23.html. Repeated scientific studies, including a new study published in the highly respected journal Nature, indicate that a strain of HIV was spreading among the children before the accused nurses and doctor began working at the hospital. The US government can and should exert more pressure on Libya to release and exonerate the health workers. I urge you to work with Congress and the Administration to: * Press the State Department for stronger action to assure the release and exoneration of the health workers and for public recognition of the unfair trial and failure to address key scientific evidence. * Suspend any progress toward further normalization with Libya until the detainees are released and exonerated. As Libya tries to repair its relations with the EU and the US, it must recognize and adhere to the rule of law and due process. * Delay confirmation of any nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Libya until the detainees are released. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
Sincerely, |
Campaign Launched: |
Physicians for Human Rights condemns the unfair trial and death sentence of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician wrongfully convicted of intentionally infecting more than 400 children with HIV in a Libyan hospital. Repeated scientific studies, including a new study published in the highly respected journal Nature, indicate that a strain of HIV was spreading among the children before the accused nurses and doctor began working at the hospital.| Background Information |
The nurses--Valya Chervenyashka, Snezhanka Dimitrova, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, and Kristiana Valcheva--and physician--Ashraf Ahmad Jum'a--worked in Al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi, Libya. They will appeal the verdict.
This is the health workers' second trial; they were also convicted at the first trial, during which scientific evidence was rejected by the judge. That conviction and death sentence were thrown out on a legal technicality. The accused have been imprisoned by the Libyan government for nearly eight years. The prisoners indicate that they confessed to the charges under torture.
Rigorous, peer-reviewed medical research in the journal Nature indicates that the infections began before the time that the doctor and nurses worked in the hospital, pointing to re-used medical equipment as the likely cause of the children's HIV infection. Re-used, unsterilized medical instruments and supplies are a frequent conduit of HIV infection in hospitals that fail to follow so-called "universal precautions." It is unclear whether conditions that precipitated the outbreak are still in place in Libyan hospitals.
Many countries, such as Romania and Kazakhstan, have also experienced widespread, accidental HIV infection outbreaks due to reused medical equipment that was not sterilized. US hospitals battle a similar problem; lethal staph infections are spread to patients inadvertently through the re-use of blood pressure cuffs and on the hands and gloves of medical workers.
See:PHR-drafted statement signed by top HIV experts calling for release of health workers
PHR is calling upon the Libyan government to release and exonerate these health workers and on other governments, most notably the US, to exert all possible influence on the Libyan authorities to do so.
"The nurses and doctor have been jailed for eight years, tortured and sentenced to death twice. They are victims in this merciless process. Science, the truth and the families manipulated by propaganda are also victims in this very sad case," said PHR Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin.
"The only just outcome of this trial would be the immediate release of the nurses and physician," said Sirkin.
"The children who were infected at the Benghazi Hospital deserve treatment and compensation for what has happened to them, but all the children of Libya need a healthcare system that is designed to prevent these outbreaks."
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