independent race and refugee news network


	Topics

Government policy

Policing and criminal justice system

Violence and harassment

Asylum seekers and refugees

Education

Media

Employment

Extreme-Right politics

Features

Statistics and definitions

Quiz

Schools against deportations

Reclaiming the struggle

Far-Right in Europe

Race, the press and HIV

By Liz Fekete

1 August 1997

The trial of Steven Thomas, an American black accused of manslaughter after knowingly infecting 12 Finnish women with HIV, has become an explosive race issue after police issued his picture to the press.

Finland has the lowest incidence of Aids in Europe and a tiny immigrant population. But now, according to the Helsinki Aids Council, black people are being associated with Aids.

Police action criticised

Even the lawyer for six of Thomas' victims has denounced the police action, saying that women who slept with him will not testify because of the huge publicity the photograph has generated. And Thomas' lawyer alleges that the police would never have released his client's photo if he had been a white Finn, or even a white American. It is, he says, the modern day equivalent of Finland's old custom of punishment by shame, (ie chaining criminals to a pole in front of the church).

The decision to prosecute Thomas for manslaughter has also been criticised. While Thomas' lawyer admits that his client acted recklessly and committed a crime, he argues that manslaughter is the wrong charge as HIV does not always cause Aids and the chance of the Aids virus being transmitted from a man to a woman during a single act of unprotected sex is widely accepted as between 1 and 2 per cent.

Guardian 17.4.97

privacy | using our content | advertising | support us