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Summary of Aim

End US HIV discrimination

Full Text of Petition

We the undersigned petition the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Council regarding fair treatment for EU citizens with HIV or AIDs in the US visa waiver programme.

We are profoundly concerned at the current unjustified discriminatory treatment of people living with HIV or AIDS by the US authorities, in denying them the visa-free travel enjoyed or envisaged by their EU compatriots and making the obtaining of a visa extremely difficult such that the restrictions amount in practice to an almost complete travel ban.

We assert that the refusal of visa waiver on grounds of HIV/AIDS has no objective justification since the European Commission and UNAIDS both confirm there is no public health rationale for restricting freedom of movement, and we believe that the travel ban therefore represents discriminatory treatment and a denial of human rights.

We maintain that people with HIV/AIDS are entitled to lead full lives without the exceptional and unfair burden of being required to publicly disclose their HIV/AIDS status as a condition of entry to the US, such that if they are positive, their status becomes a permanent part of their record placing them at further risk of discrimination;

We therefore demand that the EU includes in its negotiations with the United States authorities on the extension of visa waiver to the nationals of all 27 EU countries the inclusion of people with HIV/AIDS on the same basis as other EU citizens through the repeal of 1993 US statute withholding such travel rights.

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