BY SIBYLLE KACZOREK & JO ELLIS
DARWIN — The AIDS Council's annual candlelight vigil, held on May 20, provided solidarity for those living with HIV and encouraged people to join the fight against discrimination and oppression.
Gary Meyerhoff, former convenor of People Living with HIV/AIDS NT and member of the Democratic Socialist Party, gave a personal account of the emotional impact of being HIV positive, but focused on the need for AIDS activists to campaign against corporate control of HIV treatment, which denies treatment to the majority of HIV positive people in the world.
The federal government's welfare reform program also needs to be opposed, he added, because it denies HIV positive people the right to a government pension unless they are at "death's door".
In the Northern Territory, the rally heard, the main issues of concern relate to the compulsory testing of people in detention centres, the criminalisation of cannabis use and growth for treatment purposes, and government opposition to the needle exchange program in Palmerston, 30 kilometres from Darwin.
Pat Anderson, the head of Aboriginal health organisation Danila Dilba, and Tony O'Callahan-Creed, convenor of People Living With HIV/AIDS Northern Territory also spoke.