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Malaysian AIDS Council volunteer hands over safe sex leaflets during an event held to mark World AIDS Day in Kuala Lumpur
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By
IOL Cairo Staff
PARIS,
December 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - AIDS and human rights are
so closely linked that any attempt to stop the spread of the killer
virus must also fight against poverty and exclusion, the French chapter
of Amnesty International said Sunday, December 1, to mark World AIDS
Day.
“Human
rights standards are not an option but an essential part of the fight
against AIDS. Social exclusion, poverty and discrimination are
intrinsically tied to HIV/AIDS,” the group said in a statement, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“People
at risk of contamination by the AIDS virus exist on the fringes of
society and lack the most basic rights - the right to live free of
discrimination, the right to an education, the right to physical
integrity, the right to medical care and economic security,” it said.
The
rights group called on governments to improve public health services and
make efforts to “overcome prejudice, disinformation and discrimination
that dominate in the public view”.
Despite
active measures to stem the spread of the worldwide epidemic, including
the U.N.-backed World AIDS Day entering its 15th year, too many live
ignorant of prevention methods and deprived of treatment, Amnesty said.
According
to the latest figures, released earlier this week by U.N.’s specialist
agency UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO), five million
people this year will have become infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and some 3.1 million will have died from
AIDS.
An
estimated 42 million people worldwide suffer from AIDS or are
HIV-infected.
Doctors
and activists on Sunday launched a campaign for easing the burden of
stigma suffered by many of the 42 million people with AIDS and HIV.
“Live
and Let Live,” the slogan for the year-long U.N.-backed campaign, will
lobby for understanding and tolerance for people with HIV/AIDS, who
often face crippling discrimination in the workplace, from friends and
even their close family.
“The
fear of stigma leads to silence, and when it comes to fighting AIDS,
silence is death. It suppresses public discussion about AIDS, and deters
people from finding out whether they are infected,” U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan said in an address to mark World AIDS Day, now in its
15th year.
According
to Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. specialist agency UNAIDS,
progress, fragile but real, has been made in sub-Saharan Africa’s
fight against AIDS.
Piot
said “modest progress” had been made in parts of southern and
eastern Africa, noting in particular South Africa and Zambia, and parts
of Ethiopia and Tanzania.
“We
now have an increasing number of countries in the region where less
people have become infected with HIV than last year, and that is good
news”, Piot said at a press conference at African Union headquarters.
On
the continent, where nearly 30 million people are infected with the
human immune-deficiency virus (HIV) and 2.4 million people have died of
AIDS -related causes this year, progress is measured in relative terms.
“It’s
far too early to cry victory because this will require a sustained
effort everywhere,” Piot said.
Meanwhile,
thousands of people in India’s northeast pledged Sunday to prevent
AIDS from spiraling out of control in a region where the disease has
already assumed epidemic proportions.
Schoolchildren,
health workers and rehabilitated drug addicts, holding placards and
singing specially-composed songs, marched through the streets in seven
northeastern states to mark World AIDS Day.
Government
figures put the toll of HIV-positive Indians at four million, although
unofficial estimates suggest the number is closer to five million.
India
was among those Asian nations warned recently by the United Nations to
take swift and decisive action to prevent AIDS from reaching epidemic
proportions.
Some
100,000 HIV-positive patients live within Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,
Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, and authorities fear
the disease could spread rapidly due to the region’s acute drug
problem.
India’s
northeast borders the heroin-producing “Golden Triangle” of Laos,
Myanmar and Thailand and has high rates of intravenous drug use - a key
cause of infection here by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which
causes AIDS.
The
states account for less than three percent of India’s one billion-plus
population but are home to more than 30 percent of the country’s total
intravenous drug users, according to estimates.
IslamOnline’s
fatwa editing desk said that there are two main measures recommended by
Islam, as part of its moral code, which are essential for the protection
against AIDS. These measures include marriage, proscription of sexual
promiscuity and deterrence.
The
teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, urge
Muslims to make marriage affordable and easy for all members of society.
Proscribing
promiscuity is achieved through the following measures:
1.
Urging men and women to control their sexual urge and avoid the lewd
gaze which could arouse sexual desires and lead to unlawful sexual
contact.
2.
Advising women to wear hijab.
Thus,
Muslim women are taught to wear loose, plain and non-transparent clothes
that preserve and enhance their dignity and modesty.
Forbidding
all provocative activities such as pornography, provocative singing,
dancing, music and films, that tantalizes and arouse sensual feelings.
In
addition there should also be effective deterrence: When education and
upbringing fail and other preventive methods prove ineffective in
stamping out permissive behavior in society, resort must then be made to
punishment, as a deterrence to others.
However,
such punishments must be prescribed under very stringent conditions of
proof. In case of illicit sexual acts, for example, punishment cannot be
meted out without either a full admission by the accused, or the
unanimous testimony of four eye witnesses who must agree on every detail
of the misdemeanor.
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