The “Benghazi Six”

According to the Focus News Agency, the Arab Maghreb Union is concerned over the European media campaign against Libya’s treatment of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting over 400 children with the HIV virus in 1998. I say, shut up Arab Maghreb Union.

Since the initial sentencing of the “Benghazi Six,” there has been growing evidence that the HIV infection occurred because of unhygienic and outdated hospital practices. Can’t say I’m surprised - if Libyan hospitals are anything like Moroccan ones (and I venture that they’re probably worse), then there’s most likely no soap (even in private clinics here, that’s known to happen), and who knows their practice with needles (though I can assure you that needles in Morocco are new - at some hospitals, you have to go to the adjoining pharmacy and buy your packaged needle yourself).

My own speculation aside, there is also evidence that the nurses were tortured and even raped in order to get testimonies from them. The Sofia Weekly, a Bulgarian newspaper says that:

In the first trial, the judges set aside the scientific evidence in favor of a dramatic cloak-and-dagger scenario based on testimony by Libyans who said they had witnessed the nurses hoarding vials of HIV-infected blood; the testimony was bolstered by confessions that the nurses have since said were elicited by torture.

Nine Libyan security officers and a doctor were charged and later acquitted of torturing the nurses to extract confessions. How then, are their sentences still valid? At the end of last June, the Bulgarian nurses appealed on the basis of the acquitted security officers mistreatment but were rejected by the Libyan court. Then, the Bulgarian nurses were charged with slander because of their accusations against the Libyan officers.

Although the EU strongly opposes the behavior of the Libyan government in this case, they’ve dedicated 2.4 million Euros to HIV education and treatment of HIV-infected children in both Libya and the EU.

So now, the Arab Maghreb Union, according to Focus News Agency, “calls on all the countries, especially the European ones, to adopt a positive attitude to the case of the medics sentenced to death and the HIV infected children with a view to human and legal aspects of the issue, and lay aside any politization.”

Sure - let’s forget about the fact that Libya is mistreating foreign medical workers and just focus on the children. Let’s forget about justice and Libya’s outrageous human rights violations (and please, their lack of hygiene in hospitals which allowed 400 children to become HIV-infected in the first place certainly falls into that category) and “lay aside politization.”

Libyan news sources have been slandering the nurses and Bulgaria as well, as this article from Focus News demonstrates.

More information on the case can be found from the following sources:

Nature News - Outlines the scientific evidence which backs the medics

The Stanford Progressive - Excellent overview of the case

Sofia News Agency