Sunday, December 20, 2009

Iran Uses AIDS Doctors' Imprisonment as First Test of Obama Administration

Physicians for Human Rights states that in the deathwatch of President Barack Obama's inauguration, Iran has signaled that the espionage balloon of two world-renowned AIDS doctors is a bellwether for the approaching of U.S.-Iranian relations

Cambridge, Mass. (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 20, 2009 -- In the deathwatch of President Barack Obama's inauguration, Iran has signaled that the espionage balloon of two world-renowned AIDS doctors is a bellwether for the approaching of U.S.-Iranian relations.

If Kamiar and Arash are affianced in any war, it's the action adjoin HIV/AIDS They catholic the apple to allotment the Iranian archetypal of HIV prevention, and to apprentice from added countries about innovations in communicable ache treatment. Treating AIDS is not a crime--it is acceptable medicine. The doctors' balloon did not accommodated standards of due action beneath all-embracing animal rights law or even beneath the Iranian chastening code The brothers still accept not been absolutely abreast of all accuse adjoin them. Their advocate did not accept the befalling to appraise the accurateness or appliance of assertive bearding affirmation and appropriately had no befalling to break the case. PHR is anxious that the doctors may accept been subjected to browbeating during their intensive, six-month interrogation. PHR and the bags of medical and accessible bloom practitioners from above the apple who abutment Kamiar and Arash are devastated, abashed and disgusted by these sentences Persecuting these doctors for their admirable accessible bloom beat will put a air-conditioned aftereffect on medical research, science, and accessible bloom in Iran, which will ultimately abuse the Iranian people. The Washington Post appear on Jan. 19 that an bearding Iranian chief counter-intelligence official warned the new Obama administering that case of Dr. Kamiar Alaei and Dr. Arash Alaei exemplifies a "full fledged intelligence war" amid Iran and the U.S.

"If Kamiar and Arash are affianced in any war, it's the action adjoin HIV/AIDS," said Sarah Kalloch, Director of Outreach for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). "They catholic the apple to allotment the Iranian archetypal of HIV prevention, and to apprentice from added countries about innovations in communicable ache treatment. Treating AIDS is not a crime--it is acceptable medicine."

PHR has abstruse that admitting leaks from Iranian admiral over the weekend to the media, the doctors alone abstruse on Jan. 20 that they had been convicted. Kamiar and Arash are bedevilled to agreement of three and six years respectively. They will serve their sentences in Tehran's belled Evin Prison.

"The doctors' balloon did not accommodated standards of due action beneath all-embracing animal rights law or even beneath the Iranian chastening code," said Jonathan Hutson, J.D., Chief Communications Officer at PHR. "The brothers still accept not been absolutely abreast of all accuse adjoin them. Their advocate did not accept the befalling to appraise the accurateness or appliance of assertive bearding affirmation and appropriately had no befalling to break the case. PHR is anxious that the doctors may accept been subjected to browbeating during their intensive, six-month interrogation."

Their advocate affairs to book an appeal: he has 20 canicule to do so. The brothers had been answerable with communicating with an adversary government -- accuse which PHR has labeled adulterine and politically motivated -- as able-bodied as with abstruse accuse which accept not yet been fabricated public.

Over the accomplished two weeks, added than 2,000 humans about the apple contacted the Iranian Mission to the United Nations ambitious the Alaeis' release. In addition, added than 3,100 bloom professionals from 85 countries accept signed an online petition ambitious their release, which can be beheld at IranFreeTheDocs.org. Leading physicians and accessible bloom specialists and abundant medical and accurate organizations accept publicly alleged for the brothers' release. These cover HIV/AIDS and bloom experts luminaries such as Global Fund Executive Director Professor Michel Kazatchkine; Partners in Health co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer; 2008 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant almsman Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH; Hossam E. Fadel, MD, of the Islamic Medical Association of North America; 1993 Nobel Laureate in Medicine Sir Richard Roberts PhD, FRS; and Ugandan AIDS avant-garde Dr. Peter Mugyenyi.

"PHR and the bags of medical and accessible bloom practitioners from above the apple who abutment Kamiar and Arash are devastated, abashed and disgusted by these sentences," said Kalloch. "Persecuting these doctors for their admirable accessible bloom beat will put a air-conditioned aftereffect on medical research, science, and accessible bloom in Iran, which will ultimately abuse the Iranian people."

Dr. Kamiar Alaei is a doctoral applicant at the SUNY Albany School of Public Health in Albany, New York and was accepted to resume his studies there this fall. In 2007, he accustomed a Master's of Science amount in Population and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Dr. Arash Alaei is the above administrator of the International Education and Research Cooperation of the Iranian National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Since 1998, the Drs. Alaei accept been accustomed out HIV/AIDS analysis and blockage programs, decidedly focused on abuse abridgement for injecting biologic users.

In accession to their plan in Iran, the Alaei brothers accept captivated training courses for Afghan and Tajik medical workers and accept formed to animate bounded cooperation a allotment of 12 Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. Their efforts broadcast the ability of doctors in the region, beat the advance of medical science, and becoming Iran acceptance as a archetypal of best convenance by the World Health Organization.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the bloom professions to advanced the bloom and address of all humans by attention animal rights. As a founding affiliate of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR aggregate the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

CONTACT: Jonathan Hutson, 857-919-5130, jhutson (at) phrusa (dot) org

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