Bulgarian Nurses Face Death in Libya

An October 17 article in the Washington Post reports that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor are being imprisoned by Libya and may possibly face a firing squad.  The nurses are accused of intentionally infecting 400 children with the HIV virus; however, the WHO, which sent a team to Libya to investigate their AIDS problem, concluded that “the factor ‘mainly responsible for the current epidemic’ was the accidental spread of the virus in medical procedures. [Also] that sterile supplies and better equipment were needed.”  Dr. Luc Montagnier, discoverer of the AIDS virus, has argued on behalf of the nurses, maintaining that sanitary conditions were the cause of the spread.  Since their arrest, the nurses have reported that they have been tortured.

The article points out that European and US policy toward Libya has been conciliatory since the cessation of its nuclear weapons program.  Bulgaria, which calls the nurses “hostages”, has called for international pressure on the case, arguing that if the nurses were British, Italian, or American, the situation would be much different.

In the Warsaw Declaration of 2000, the Community of Democracies determined that the signers would uphold “core democratic principles and practices.”  The accompanying list of principles included the following, which relate to the detention of the nurses:

• The right of every person to be free from arbitrary arrest or detention; to be free from torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment; and to receive due process of law, including to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
• That the aforementioned rights, which are essential to full and effective participation in a democratic society, be enforced by a competent, independent and impartial judiciary open to the public, established and protected by law.

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