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UNGASS exclusion angers AIDS activists

    JOHANNESBURG

    The South African AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), says government intolerance of criticism is to blame for its exclusion from a recent high-level UN discussion on AIDS targets and interventions.

    TAC spokesman Mark Heywood said an investigation into why his group was barred from the annual UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) indicated that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had made the decision unilaterally.

    "Senior departmental officials, whom I contacted to find out if the rumours were true, did not know about this ... it was a decision taken by the minister without consultation," Heywood told the South African Press Association.

    However, the director-general of health, Thami Mseleku, said government had objected to the TAC's presence because on previous occasions they had used such platforms to vilify Tshabalala-Msimang and President Thabo Mbeki.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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