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The South African government should not respond with violence to HIV/AIDS demonstrators seeking medical treatment, Human Rights Watch said today. Police in Durban yesterday opened water cannons on some 70 peaceful demonstrators who were urging the government to provide antiretroviral treatment for persons living with HIV/AIDS. This attack took place on the eve of South Africa's Human Rights Day, established in memory of the victims of apartheid-era atrocities.

"There is no justification for violence on the part of the authorities in the face of peaceful protest," said Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/AIDS Program of Human Rights Watch. "The treatment movement's methods have consistently been nonviolent, and the police response is unfitting for a country committed to human rights."

The organization Treatment Access Campaign (TAC) is leading a series of civil disobedience actions in a campaign called "Dying for Treatment" that includes peaceful demonstrations near police stations. TAC's strategy is to send a few protestors into police stations to bring charges of manslaughter against key government officials who are alleged to have impeded access to life-saving treatment for people with AIDS, knowing that those who enter police stations to present these charges are likely to be arrested. It was after the presentation of these charges that police in Durban tried to disperse the demonstrators outside the station and, when they refused to disperse, used water cannons to clear the area. No arrests were reported in the Durban incident.

South Africa is home to about 5 million persons with AIDS. The government has repeatedly refused to provide antiretroviral treatment through government health programs and had to be taken to court in 2002 to be forced to provide even the short course of antiretroviral medicines that can reduce the risk of HIV transmission in childbirth, routinely provided in countries much more resource-strapped than South Africa.

"We urge the government not to compound its inaction in addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis in the country by responding inappropriately to peaceful protestors," said Csete. "People with AIDS have suffered enough-it's time to work with them to avert death on a massive scale, not to treat them like criminals."

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