Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Monday, August 16, 1999
Andrew Selsky - Associated Press Writer
Gugu Dlamini, a 36-year-old volunteer field worker for the National Association of People Living With HIV and AIDS, was fatally beaten Dec. 1 after publicly disclosing that she had the virus at a gathering on World AIDS Day.
Police arrested four suspects in January and later released them into the custody of their parents. Police Director Bala Naidoo confirmed Sunday that murder charges against the four men, aged 18-27, had been dropped, but said they might be reinstated.
Activists accused authorities of laxness in bringing Dlamini's killers to justice and said it was sending the wrong message.
"When a person is murdered for being open about her HIV status and you allow murderers to get away with it, what does that say to (other people with HIV/AIDS)," Mark Heywood of the AIDS Law Project was quoted as saying in The Sunday Independent, a Johannesburg newspaper.
The beating occurred in a town in KwaZulu-Natal province, where an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the population has HIV or AIDS. Despite the high infection rate, those who are known to be infected are generally shunned, so they often try to keep their status a secret. The government is attempting to boost AIDS awareness and condom use in a country where an estimated 3.6 million people -- or 8.6 percent of the population -- are infected with HIV or AIDS.
In a telephone interview, Naidoo denied the Dlamini case was being given short shrift.
"The charges have been provisionally withdrawn pending a further investigation by a special unit," he said, adding that authorities were giving the case "priority."
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