Deja-vu, all over again. We are again asking you to email John Gerretsen, Ontario’s Attorney General. He has gone back on the Ministry’s commitment to develop guidelines to reign in Crown Prosecutors. And we are now seeing PHAs criminally charged for mutual masturbation. For mutual masturbation.
Gerretsen has let the community know that he is not going to budge. He is going to “wait and see” what the Supreme Court says when it releases two decisions in the coming months. All the while, police and Crown Prosecutors are taking the legal position that any HIV non-disclosure is a sexual assault. Never mind the risk of HIV transmission. Never mind that the Supreme Court decided in 1998 that the Crown Prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the non-disclosure and sex carried a significant risk HIV transmission.
PHAs are in jail awaiting trial. Others are being criminal charges. Many are living in fear and anger. And the police, Crown Prosecutors, and Minister Gerretsen? Business “as usual.” Gerretsen has ignored repeated requests for a meeting. So please … join AAN! and the Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure in protest and action.
The Ontario Working Group is asking people to email Minister Gerresten. And they have made it easy for you to do so .., click on the link in the message just below, from the Co-chairs of the Working group.
12 September 2012
On behalf of the Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure (CLHE), we ask you (individuals and organizations) to tell John Gerretsen, Ontario’s Attorney General, to stop illegal and unjust criminal prosecutions against people living with HIV in Ontario, and to re-open the dialogue with the community.
We are asking you to send Ontario’s Attorney General an email requesting that he immediately:
1) instruct Crown prosecutors to stop prosecuting people living with HIV where there is no “significant risk” of HIV transmission;
2) put all prosecutions “on hold” until the Supreme Court releases its decision in two upcoming cases (expected in the fall); and
3) meet with community-based CLHE to discuss when and how he will fulfill the previous Attorney General’s promise to put in place guidelines for Crown prosecutors working on HIV non-disclosure cases.
You can send Mr. Gerretsen an email by completing the on-line form, at http://ontarioaidsnetwork.on.ca/clhe/. Please take 5 minutes today to support fairness and justice for people living with HIV.
For more information about the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, and the Campaign for Prosecutorial Guidelines, visit:
Thank you,
Ryan Peck, co-chair, Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure
Anne Marie DiCenso, co-chair, Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure
