Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - July 14, 2004
Achara Ashayagachat
Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/Aids and Human Rights Programme, said the New York-based group and other international non-government organisations would closely watch to see if the commitment made by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was for real.
Her comment came after the prime minister and several other ministers left the opening session of the 15th International Aids Conference on Sunday night before the only injecting HIV patient listed to speak took the podium.
"It was a very bad sign of the level of respect the government gives to drug users," Ms Csete said at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Monday night.
Jonathan Cohen, the team researcher, said as long as the government continued to over-criminalise the illicit use of drugs and trafficking, any HIV prevention effort was bound to fail.
"You cannot on one hand say people with medical problems should get treatment and on the other hand condone violence against those associated with drug trafficking because it creates a climate of fear that undermines any efforts to deliver comprehensive medical services to people who use drugs," he said.
With police who had a history of planting evidence against cornered drug users being allowed a death quota, it was not then a simple thing to call drug users patients, Mr Cohen said.
Human Rights Watch released a report last week saying that the government's anti-drug campaign had driven drug users underground and away from life-saving HIV prevention services.
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