Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - November 22, 2001
Tanya Pampalone, Of The Examiner Staff
Assistant City Attorney Scott Burrell said Tuesday the latest order bars Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli, members of ACT UP San Francisco, from contacting or harassing Shields. The group does not believe that HIV causes AIDS.
Last week, temporary restraining orders were issued to keep the two from contacting Mike Shriver, Mayor Willie Brown's AIDS adviser and Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, the head of sexually transmitted disease and prevention at DPH.
Petrelis and Pasquarelli sent out mass e-mails with the home phone numbers of public health officials, as well as home numbers for reporters and editors of the New York Times and the Bay Area Reporter, the news organizations that have looked into the actions of the AIDS activists. A government official said the listings resulted in a spate of harassing, obscene and threatening phone calls -- and even death threats.
Klausner received threatening phone calls at home and at work from both men and had to change his home phone number because of the calls.
Earlier this month, Petrelis and Pasquarelli were hit by a separate restraining notice ordering them to keep away from a number of San Francisco Chronicle reporters and editors, who had received threatening phone calls from the pair.
The renegade activists said they believe articles about the rising number of syphilis cases among gay men in San Francisco and the rise of unsafe sexual practices among gay men are inaccurate.
The Bay Area Reporter, which reports on The City's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, wrote an editorial blasting Petrelis, Pasquarelli and ACT UP San Francisco last week. The editorial called the harassment unacceptable and said their tactics are "violence masquerading as activism."
E-mail Tanya Pampalone at tpampalone@sfexaminer.com
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