Although Dr. Arash Alaei was slated to be among the speakers at the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, August 3-8, 2008, there will be an empty chair on the dais. Dr. Alaei and his brother Kamiar, also a leading physician in HIV/AIDS work, were detained by Iranian security forces without charge in late June. They are being held incommunicado; their whereabouts remain unknown.

The Drs. Alaei’s work has addressed the most disadvantaged populations and patients in [Iran]. Since 1998, Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei have been carrying out programs dealing with HIV/AIDS, particularly focused on harm reduction for injecting drug users in the war-torn province of Kermanshah, on the West Coast of Iran. The Alaei brothers have also sought the integration of prevention and care of HIV/AIDS, sexually-transmitted infections, and drug-related harm reduction, into Iran’s national health care system.

Marc Parry of the Albany Times Union reports:

The brothers have appeared in prominent international media outlets like the Washington Post and the BBC, which broadcast a documentary that featured their AIDS work.

The Asia Society named Kamiar Alaei a fellow in its Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative. The program brings together “the most dynamic emerging leaders under the age of 40 from across the Asia-Pacific region.”

Asia Society Chairman Richard C. Holbrooke released a statement expressing concern about the detention of two brothers he called “leading figures in the HIV/AIDS community.”

Arash Alaei was supposed to join 25,000 people at an international AIDS conference in Mexico in two weeks, according to Human Rights Watch. He intended to give a presentation on Iran’s “innovative HIV program.”

“The focus of the meeting will be on where we are making progress in the fight against AIDS and where we are failing,” Joe Amon, HIV/AIDS program director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Iran cannot be considered to be making progress if it is blatantly violating the human rights of two of its most valuable activists in this area.”

Iran, Free the Docs

Please sign the petition to Iran on this site calling for the release of the Drs. Alaei. Thank you for taking action.

(This was posted in longer format at The Daily Kos.)

Jonathan Hutson is the Chief Communications Officer at PHR.