For the third year in its 28-year existence, the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices included HIV-related violations. (For the full report, drop by www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/.) This year’s roundup, presented to Congress on March 8, cited AIDS offenses in 60 countries—though it left our own nation’s sins, from prison care to workplace discrimination, off the list. Condoleezza come home.    

  1. In the former Soviet republic Belarus doctors denied care to positive patients, and hospitals segregated positive pregnant women.
  2. The Cuban government restricted the newly diagnosed to sanitariums for treatment and often assigned chaperones to monitor their behavior after release. Docs regularly disclosed patients’ status without their permission, and many positive people reported that the government assigned them to jobs that threatened their weakened immune systems.
  3. Employers in Honduras flouted laws against HIV discrimination by testing for HIV along with syphilis then weeding out positive employees and applicants, according to a national AIDS organization.
  4. Some Indian schoolchildren were expelled if they or their parents were positive, and orphanages denied housing and aid to positive kids. Meanwhile, the International Labor Organization found that 70% of positive Indians experienced discrimination, and one positive man was chained to a hospital bed.
  5. In Nigeria positive people were routinely fired and denied health care as HIVwas repeatedly condemned as a product of immoral behavior.
  6. Omitted from the report: Syria’s deputy minister of religious endowments, Muhammad Abd Al-Sattar Al-Sayyid, stated on national TV that all HIV positive people should be stoned to stop the spread of the disease.