Five nurses and a doctor have been falsely accused of deliberately infecting their patients with HIV. They've been imprisoned and tortured in Libya since 1999 and may now be condemned to death. Declan Butler writes:
what is needed is an immediate and sustained mobilization of international opinion, something which has been badly lacking so far. Bloggers, and the scientific community, can help create pressure on the authorities for the immediate release of the Tripoli six: Christiana Malinova Valcheva, Valia Georgieva Cherveniashka, Nasia Stoitcheva Nenova, Valentina Manolova Siropulo, Snezhana Ivanova Dimitrova and Ashraf Ahmad Jum'a
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Soon, maybe as soon as the end of the month, the Libyan Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor, the "Tripoli 6" (here, here, here, here, here and here). As it approaches there is intense activity from the international scientific community. On…
As Revere notes, the trial of the Tripoli six is scheduled to resume on October 31. This means the time for serious action is now.
As Mike Dunford points out,
If you want to do something more than just get mad, if you want to try to change things, you will need to do more than read blog articles…
Contrary to expectation, the trial of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor for capital crimes in a Libyan court did not conclude yesterday but was continued until November 4 to allow the prosecutors to answer arguments by the defense that Libyan authorities have framed the Tripoli…
Long-time readers of SciBlogs might remember the physicians and nurses working in Libya in the late 1990s, who were accused of purposefully infecting children with HIV-1, the "Tripoli 6".
Science established that they were innocent.
Basic logic established they were innocent (not only was there no…
Wow I've opened up all the scieneclogs articles on this issue in tabs and a synicated news article after that. I haven't read it. First I comment on Bushwell's blog and now I turn to yours and read "They've been imprisoned and tortured in Libya since 1999..."
Now I'm really, really angry.
I know, have the UN issue one of their stern letters. That always works.
Better yet Ben - have the British praise Gaddafi as an "elder statesman" who contributes to regional stability again.
BTW, you know that UN sanctions did force Gaddafi to hand over the Lockerbie bomers, I take it?
Wow, the UN actually did more than issue several stern letters? And it only took 15 years!
If I remember correctly, Gaddafi was on the receiving end of bombs sent with love by Reagan. Maybe he didn't want to go through that again. My Lybian friend said they were very happy after the bombing because they thought Gaddafi was dead, but then were greatly dissapointed when his stupid voice came back on the radio later that day.
A girl (his daughter?) was killed by the bombing that missed Gaddafi, Ben - is that your memory of it too?
Yes just think sanctiosn take longer to work than the average sit-com.
This is an obvious fatal defect before we even consider the lack of colorful explosions and stock footage of fighter aircraft on the news programs.
Then again Reagan's bombing raids failed completely (other than as Frankis noted to kill one of Gaddafi's infant daughters). So obviously let's skip straight to the ground invasion - after all that strategy has worked wonderfully well in Iraq and Lebanon.
Yeah, this has been all over some of the English-speaking Arab blogs and related sites for a very, very long time now. Qaddafi is definitely playing games with these individuals. In part, to detract attention from the unsanitary conditions that foster the spread of AIDS in Libyan hospitals.
Wikipedia has a decent article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_five_Bulgarian_nurses_and_a_Pales…
Then again Reagan's bombing raids failed completely (other than as Frankis noted to kill one of Gaddafi's infant daughters)
They failed so completely that Qaddafi has never dared attack the United States again.
"They failed so completely that Qaddafi has never dared attack the United States again.'
When had he "attacked the United states" previously?
Note: attacking US naval vessels that knowingly enter into what Libya claimd as its territorial waters doesn't count.
Yeah, Reagan's attack on Libya for (alleged) complicity in a bombing attack which killed 60 people was so effective that it was more than a year before Gaddafi dared (alleged) kill 270 people in the lockerbie bombing.
(Yeah it wasn't a direct attack on the US, involving as it did an attack on a US-bound aircraft in British airspace, but neither was the earlier attack on La Belle disco in Berlin.)