AIDSphobic

It was a pretty good day until I stumbled on this article about a very appalling incident in Bangkok:

HIV activist Nicholas Snow catches abusive Bangkok neighbour on video
by Sylvia Tan

Nicholas Snow, who came out publicly about being HIV-positive last year, captures and shares his traumatic experience of being verbally accosted by a neighbour about the former's HIV status last night on video.

Nicholas Snow, a Bangkok-based journalist who publicly disclosed his HIV-positive status in an exclusive interview with Fridae in October last year, was verbally accosted by his neighbour at his Bangkok apartment on the evening of Aug 24.

In a four and a half minute video uploaded on Youtube, the unnamed neighbour - a young Thai man - was seen picking up a knife and attempting to throw several objects at Snow as he yelled across the hallway about Snow's self-disclosure of his HIV status in a “book” (magazine) and on a gay personals web site.

Snow, who is gay, said his neighbour began verbally abusing him just as he was returning home. As the tirade did not stop after Snow had closed his door to his apartment, he picked up his video camera from inside his apartment and opened the door to film his neighbour.

The exchange went:

“I will not be harassed because I have HIV. You are not allowed to treat your neigbhours this way.”

“I don’t want friendly with people with HIV,” said the neighbour when Snow said that he's only being friendly when he greets him or others in the building.

When Snow warned his neighbour that the video would be posted on the Internet, he was told: “I don’t care. You can put it in the newspaper.”

As the tirade went on, Snow retreated into his apartment and revealed that he believes that his neigbour had come to know of his HIV-positive status from his profile on a gay personals website. On the same day, someone has sent him a message asking him to “die” or “go back to (his) own country.” The sender had also correctly identified the name of his apartment building. Snow added that he recognised the apartment, in which the photos on the profile were taken, to be similar to his own apartment.

He further explained that the will post the video on the Internet as an “example of stigma and discrimination that exist around HIV and AIDS.”

“I sorta invited stigma and discrimination to come my way because I wanted to stand up against it.”

Last year, Snow founded ActionEqualsLife.com, a social networking web site created to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, champion "human rights for all" and support equality for all LGBT people.

He also wants to stress that the “behaviour of the individual in no way represents the majority of loving, accepting, hospitable Thai citizens and expats who live in Thailand. However, HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination is prevalent throughout Asia and beyond.”





I guess I will never really feel the gravity of living with HIV/AIDS until I'm actually on the receiving end of such attacks. I dunno the circumstances that led to this incident but I know for sure that this is an unacceptable way of dealing with the issue at hand. Who knows, maybe the Thai guy had a thing with Nicholas and his world crumbled upon learning of his predicament. Or maybe he's just a slob who doesn't have anything productive to do than make people's lives miserable.

Oh well, life goes on...and ignorant people continue to dwell...

Here are some stats for those who are interested:

People living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 33.0 million
Adults living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 30.8 million
Women living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 15.5 million
Children living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 2.0 million
People newly infected with HIV in 2007 2.7 million
Children newly infected with HIV in 2007 0.37 million
AIDS deaths in 2007 2.0 million
Child AIDS deaths in 2007 0.27 million

More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.

Africa has 11.6 million AIDS orphans.

At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59% in sub-Saharan Africa.

Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.

In developing and transitional countries, 9.7 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 2.99 million (31%) are receiving the drugs.


GTGL8RZ!