40 AIDS activists draped in red tape risk arrest at White House

Following a successful protest last year, over 40 AIDS activists draped in red tape risk arrest at White House

George Kerr, Co-chair of DC Fights Back will join the protesters.

Action on the eve of World AIDS Day, November 30


When: Friday 11/30 at 2:30pm

Where: White House sidewalk - Lafayette Square

Who: Over 40 HIV positive activists, health advocates, students and others

What: Civil disobedience on the White House sidewalk

RAIN OR SHINE

EVENT DETAILS:

Over 40 HIV-positive activists, health advocates, students and others will risk arrest on Friday at approximately 2:30 by performing a symbolic sit-down protest in front of the White House, at the sidewalk near Lafayette Square. The demonstrators will be draped in hundreds of yards of red tape to demand that various government entities remove the political "red tape" that is interfering with an effective response to HIV, locally, nationally, and globally. Demonstrators will be dressed as educators and doctors; others will wear shirts identifying them as people living with or at risk for HIV.

The demonstration expands upon a civil disobedience during last year's World AIDS Day, in which 20 protesters were arrested outside the White House.

The protesters, including members of local HIV/AIDS advocacy organization DC Fights Back, will be demanding that local DC public school students receive medically accurate, unbiased, comprehensive sexuality education that includes lessons on HIV and AIDS. The protest occurs following recent reports that confirm that 1 in 20 DC residents are infected with HIV and identifying DC's HIV/AIDS crisis as a modern epidemic.

Demonstrators will be echoing the call, by almost all HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations nationwide, for the US to implement a strategic US national strategy.

The assembled also say that the reauthorization of the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2008 is the time to reform the plan. This includes the removal of the 1/3 earmark for abstinence-until-marriage funding and the implementation of evidence-based HIV prevention policies, plus increased U.S. support for HIV treatment worldwide.