Fall 1997 Print Edition

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Fortress Europe. Deadlier than any virus : Euro-doctors pass secret anti-immigrant motion.

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MAHA reports on a European Federation of Academies of Medicine recent meeting on the "pathology of immigration" and its secret motion to draw governments’ attention to "the risk presented by immigration, and especially clandestine immigration, by bringing and propagating certain diseases..."

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United Kingdom. Victory for asylum seekers.

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In a case affecting thousands in Britain’s refugee communities, two asylum seekers won the right to continue to receive disability living allowance in a British High Court on 13 August 1997. MAHA revisits the story of last year’s campaign in the streets to kill the racist Asylum Bill and of how victories have been won in the courts.

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France. Sans-papiers call for moratorium on deportations.

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Twin specters of new medical insurance scheme, new immigration legislation broadens terrain of AIDS struggles. MAHA looks at the recent regularization circular, the new "universal" medical insurance scheme, and upcoming immigration legislation. Together, these developments show the urgency of making organizing for health care for all, regardless of immigration status, part and parcel of broader organizing for immigrant rights and social justice.

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Switzerland. New medical insurance locks out undocumented.

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Without raising any public protest, Swiss legislators passed a new medical law, known as LAMAL, which obliges insurance companies to check on immigration status.

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Papers for Ali B, Dignity for Mister D.

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For the first time, the European Court of Human Rights has recognized that to deport a man made gravely ill by AIDS amounts to a violation of article three of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids inhuman or degrading treatment. In France, Ali B.’s successful appeal following his deportation has led a new campaign asking that he be granted full residency rights.

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Soap Box. "We need a European network of solidarity," argues Arab AIDS organizer Nabil Azouz.

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Azouz’s message is that racist public health campaigns like Norway’s attack on the African community is an affront to all of us engaged in the harb (war) against AIDS.

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Norway : Aftermath.

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More than a year has passed since Norway’s African community rose up to protest the country’s campaign to "warn against unsafe random sex with and between Africans." Beyond the squabbles over statistics, what has changed for African people living with HIV ? Has the government succeeded in its efforts to buy out the struggle ? Moussa Awuonda filed this report after speaking to all parties involved in the dispute.

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Positively Racist. HIV/AIDS, Racism, and Immigration Controls.

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This article analyzes how the racist prejudices on which immigration controls are built coincide precisely with prejudice and discrimination in respect to HIV/AIDS when immigration control moves into the hospitals and clinics. "The trajectory of UK immigration law and procedure," write Steve Cohen, "is in the direction of the internal control and surveillance of migrants, immigrants and refugees, including people with HIV/AIDS."

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Talking Back. We must make visible our grief and anger.

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Juan Walter talks about the AIDS Quilt, calling on migrants and ethnic minorities to participate in the project. "We must let our communities and the world know," he says, "that we too are affected by AIDS and that we want to be taken seriously."

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The politics of treatment. Has combination therapy halted the tide of death in London’s African community ?

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Keefa Kiwanuka took a tour of London’s hospitals to report on whether combination therapy now means that the African community living in the UK have "cause to dance in the streets."

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The interview. From outsiders to organizers, from prevention to support.

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In this first article of a series about AIDS organizing history, MAHA talks with K.A. Adanse Pipim and John Hammond of Amsterdam’s African Foundation for AIDS prevention and control (AFAPAC).

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Third world women and HIV. New U.S. laws target women of colour for mandatory HIV testing.

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Attorney David W. Webber reports on recent legislation making HIV testing mandatory. Webber also looks at how efforts to impose mandatory testing on pregnant women and newborns are motivated by underlying assumptions based on race, class, and the related stigma of unlawsful drug use.

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"Women need information, not mandatory testing," says Bernadette Rwegera.

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Rwegera responds to a recent French proposal, taking after the U.S. model, to impose mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women, and exposes the current, illegal practice of uninformed, non-consensual HIV testing of African and Maghrebi women.

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Spain. Mandatory HIV testing as a weapon on the borderlands.

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HIV tests have become a weapon in the broad arsenal used to enforce immigration controls in Europe. At worst, as in Spain, test is used to target HIV positive asylum seekers for deportation. MAHA reports on a campaign linking AIDS organization and refugee groups to end this practice.

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Back page. Photographer Yassine captures the spirit of Third World Gay Pride Day 1997 in Paris.

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Fight homophobia. Third world communities must unite.