7/24: THOUSANDS TO OCCUPY D.C. DURING INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE, CONVERGING ON WHITE HOUSE TO DEMAND AN END TO THE AIDS EPIDEMIC

AIDS Foundation of Chicago is helping to facilitate march of more than 30,000 — DC residents, US activists from across the country & global delegates alike – calling for the resources, rights and policies to end AIDS

Washington, DC:  In a time in which science has shown the path to end the AIDS epidemic, and the Occupy movement has spotlighted the inequitable use of resources that constrain these and other efforts, more than 30,000 people living with HIV and other AIDS activists from hundreds of organizations worldwide will join to demand rights and resources to cure HIV/AIDS.

The mobilization, entitled We Can End AIDS, will begin Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 12 p.m. as five distinct branches flood downtown Washington with a range of creative and powerful actions. The marches, scheduled to occur during the International AIDS Conference, will snake through the streets of the District, including K Street, New York Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, meeting Lafayette Park at 1 pm to deliver a powerful collective message to the White House and the world: To end the AIDS pandemic, we demand the political will necessary to ensure economic justice for all and to defend and protect the human rights of our marginalized communities, including people living with HIV & AIDS.

 

“We already know that the ‘big story’ of the conference is that we could end the epidemic as we know it,” said Julie Davids, of the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, one of the coordinators of the Human Rights and Harm Reduction branch of the mobilization.

“But will we?” said Davids, who is also director of national advocacy and mobilization for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. “These marches draw together the necessary elements of what it will take to reap the benefits of new research pointing the way towards the end – resources, political will, and an end to discrimination and criminalization.”

We Can End AIDS was created to draw attention to evidence showing that, with only modest increases in funding and appropriate policies, the world could see the end of the AIDS pandemic within 30 years. We Can End AIDS is demanding the economic justice and human rights to make this a reality.

Bolstered by HPTN 052, the study that proved treatment is an effective form of HIV prevention, and which indicated that widespread treatment could thus end the epidemic in a generation, each of the five branches of the mobilization represent what is needed to achieve this outcome:

•    Demand an end to pharmaceutical greed
•    Demand a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street to end AIDS
•    Stop the war on women
•    Demand sound public policies and full funding
•    Protect human rights: end mass imprisonment and criminalization, and support harm reduction.

The International AIDS Conference will be held in Washington, DC from July 22-28th in Washington DC, a city with HIV rates higher than 32 African countries.

Follow: #endAIDS, www.wecanendaids.org