Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been wrongfully charged and are awaiting execution by firing squad in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV. They were tortured and forced to sign "confessions" written in Arabic they did not understand. In fact, the poor hygiene and bad practices in the hospital are to blame.
You can get more information in Nature (free access) editorial and news report and even more detail in an official report (pdf) and a letter (pdf) to Qaddafi.
What can you do?
First, ask your congresscritters what are they going to do about this - are they going to put international pressure on Libya to release the prisoners?
Second, e-mail your story to friends and, if you have a blog, write a post about this. Make sure that you have the words "Tripoli Six" in your post so that it gets picked up by Connotea, Technorati and Google blogsearch engines. Update: For Google (and Google News) you can also use "Benghazi Six" as well as "Tripoli Six".
You can also see what my SciBlings have written about it so far.
More information and commentary:
Saratoga Spirit
Declan Butler
Pharyngula
Method
Thoughts In A Haystack
Gene Expression
Stranger Fruit
Effect Measure
Deltoid
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge
Pure Pedantry
Respectful Insolence
Aetiology
Uncertain Principles
The Questionable Authority (the best source of action/contact information)
Science Ripsaw
Firedoglake
LeftWorld
DailyKos
The World's Fair
Majikthise
Terra Sigillata
Open Reading Frame
Maya's Corner
Maya's Corner
Maya's Corner
Tinkerty Tonk
Thoughts From Kansas
Ovidio
Cyberspace Rendezvous
Effect Measure
Lingual Tremors
Crooked Timber
Cosmic Variance
BlinkBits
Nascent
Malaysian Medical Resources
Serialdeviant
Paeonia
Bouphonia
Alternet PEEK
Comments
Email sent to my Member of Parliament as of three minutes ago. Thanks for drawing my attention to this.
Posted by: Corkscrew | September 21, 2006 5:26 AM