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Marina lashes out about AIDS |
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August 30, 2000
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's biggest AIDS awareness and prevention body has protested a proposal by officials in a southern state to subject Muslim men to HIV tests before they are allowed to get married, a news report said. The criticism of the move by Islamic religious authorities in Johor state came Monday from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's daughter, Marina Mahathir, an outspoken AIDS activist who heads the Malaysian AIDS Council. "The assumption is blood testing is somehow preventive, unfortunately it is not," Marina was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency. Mandatory HIV testing was also a violation of human rights, she said. AIDS activists would soon meet with state officials to discuss the proposal, she was quoted as saying. She told reporters that educating the public on preventive measures will be more effective in curbing the deadly disease in the predominantly Muslim Southeast Asian country where discussing sexual issues in public is taboo and where introducing sex education in schools is being resisted by conservatives. Over the weekend, top government officials in Johor proposed compulsory blood tests on Muslim men, a move that would affect men in the dominant Malay community. Johor chief minister Abdul Ghani Othman was quoted as saying by newspapers on Sunday that it was part of efforts to check the alarming rise of HIV cases in the state. "In 1999 alone, there was a 73 percent increase in HIV cases among Malays compared to the previous year," he was quoted as saying by New Sunday Times. |