In May 2004, asylum-seeker, Feston Konzani, was jailed for ten years.He knowingly infected three women with the HIV virus. Most of what follows could once be found at the
Positive Nation website,
‘the UK's HIV and sexual health magazine.’Dawn was brought up on the Thorntree estate in Middlesbrough, built in the post-war period to house working class families… Three years ago... Feston Konzani came to this run down area under the system that disperses asylum seekers across the UK.
The pretty but impulsive teenager first met the flamboyant African near her mother’s house in June 2001. 'Me and my friends were just walking down the street and he asked us if we wanted to go to a party, so we said yes,' Dawn explains…
'We didn’t know him but he was very friendly. So we thought: new person why not? He seemed really nice. After about a week I met him again on the street. We were just talking and he asked me to be his girlfriend... I was just a 15-year-old with bad taste. I liked his braided hair in different shades and wonky at the front. I think it was his hair that got me. After only two weeks of going out with him I said I’d move in with him… I was so young and so stupid but my mum wasn’t so bothered…
I was a virgin when I met him… We began to sleep together and he was nice to me at first but then, AFTER A FEW WEEKS, HE STARTED LOCKING ME IN HIS HOUSE. HE DIDN’T WANT ME TO GO OUT WITH MY FRIENDS. He said he didn’t like them. HE WAS A LUNATIC. I WASN’T ALLOWED TO RING OR SEE MY MUM’…
Dawn said she stopped talking to him and just watched TV all day... 'I WAS JUST LIKE A SEX SLAVE’… Konzani never mentioned HIV…
'By August 2001 I was getting really fed up with him and thought ‘Right, I’m going’. So I packed up my stuff and climbed out the window and went back to mum’s.'
Dawn then started dating Jamie, a drug user. She went to her doctor’s because she thought she might be pregnant. He took urine and blood samples BUT DID NOT TELL HER SHE WAS BEING TESTED FOR HIV as well as pregnancy. 'I waited about three or four months and then my doctor came round to my house and told me I had to go to hospital... I just wanted to die. I thought there was no point in living. He said: ‘I’ve made an appointment for you at the hospital and they’re going to look after you because you’re HIV positive’…
‘The doctors told me it was because I’d had unprotected sex…. I thought I was going to die. I thought I caught it from the lad who was the drug user… But he went for a test and it came back negative. So it made me think I must have caught it off Konzani… 'The police… said he’d done it to other girls as well'…
Dawn told them she had consented to sex with Konzani but that he had never brought up the issue of HIV. And she also told them the sex had been unprotected...
‘I started crying when I was questioned by the lawyers. His barrister was pretty horrible to me. Basically he called me a slapper... I started self-harming and cutting my arms…
I feel happy he’s been sent to prison. At least I know he’s not going to go out and give some other girl HIV. He could have done it to my little sister or to anyone’…
After the court case, she moved to Bradford where she married a Pakistani lad… She told him about what had happened. He wanted children and she didn’t want to risk it, so the marriage ended... Like most teenagers Dawn still likes to go out especially to gay clubs which she thinks are a 'right laugh'.
The way the gormless live today, eh? You could not make it up.
Bruce Wainwright excused Konzani thus at Positive Nation:The harm Feston Konzani caused his lovers was in every way grievous, but this does not make him a criminal...
He's black, an asylum seeker and has a gay, white lover in the diplomatic service. He's HIV positive and has infected four women... The man in question is 28-year-old Feston Konzani, convicted at Teesside crown court in May of grievous bodily harm... Judge Peter Fox sentenced Konzani to a total of 10 years in prison, followed by deportation.
That Konzani harmed his victims, and that this harm was in every way grievous, there can be little doubt… The defence rested, in essence, on the same belief ADVANCED BY THE TERRENCE HIGGINS TRUST: 'YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO KNOW, AND I HAVE NO DUTY TO TELL.'
IT IS A CLEAR AND SIMPLE DICTUM WHICH I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PREPARED TO USE MYSELF... 'YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASSUME ANYTHING ABOUT ME, AND I HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY TO TELL YOU WHAT MY MEDICAL CONDITION MIGHT BE’…
Of course, if I ask my partner: 'Are you positive?' and the response is a lie, who is then to blame? Clearly, some moral responsibility lies with the person telling the lie; BUT HEARING AND TELLING LIES IS PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION: REGRETTABLE, BUT A FACT OF LIFE... Short of swearing an affidavit in front of a solicitor prior to every sexual encounter, I see no real way around this one, certainly no legislative way. On the other hand, if I believe my partner to be ignorant, stupid, or both, should I not warn him of the risks? I'm sure I have some responsibility to do so. But CONSUMED WITH LUST AND A CLASS A SUBSTANCES, AM I IN A POSITION TO EVEN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MYSELF, LET ALONE ANYONE ELSE?
Thus does casual homosexuality shuffle off the responsibilty for devastating another human being's life. If this bloke wants your a***, lads, he's not going to let a little thing like the state of your future health get in the way of his homosexual wants and needs. Oh no.
'You have no right to know, and I have no duty to tell. You have no right to assume anything about me, and I have no responsibility to tell you what my medical condition might be.'And here's you thinking that every last Tatchell is pink and fluffy and gay magazines and AIDS charities would have a responsible attitude to HIV transmission. I mean, that is what the politicians, the media and the PC activists have been telling us for over forty years now, isn't it?
After his arrest, Konzani lied about the various women and girls he had infected and, eventually, refused to say anything. During his trial, his friend, Julian Kotze, told the jury that, when Konzani learned he was HIV positive, he had
'SPOKEN IN TERMS OF ERADICATING WOMEN.’So, here's what we know about Feston Konzani and his intimates:A governmental gay who fancies a black s**g, greases the wheels for his lover by suggesting that he claim asylum here, because
‘he is being persecuted for being homosexual’ (court record) in his own country.
After said lover arrives he is informed that he has HIV. He is warned by doctors about the risk he poses to his various partners, but continues to sleep around as, apart from his lusty nature, he is all for
‘eradicating women.’And that's how it was with Konzani for the three years it took the British system to catch up with him.
At no time did he ever tell anyone he slept with that he had HIV. Indeed, when asked, he denied it. Along the way, he took the virginity of a 15-year-old, kept her locked up and used her, according to her own testimony
‘as a sex slave.’Three of those he infected only found out they were HIV-positive after falling pregnant. And yet,
Positive Nation, the UK's HIV and sexual HEALTH magazine, features an interview with a gay named Bruce who thinks that none of this
‘makes him a criminal.’Here are the opinions of various other interested parties espoused within the same magazine.Beatrice Nabulya, of Africans Getting Involved, said:
The National Aids Trust, THT and the African HIV Policy Network have twice met the CPS IN A BID TO PERSUADE THEM TO RESTRICT PROSECUTIONS, OR AT LEAST INFLUENCE THE GUIDELINES... THESE CONVICTIONS FUEL THE STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH HIV, ESPECIALLY AMONG ALREADY EXCLUDED MINORITIES. AFRICAN MEN IN PARTICULAR ARE INVISIBLE ON THE HIV SCENE AND THIS WILL DRIVE THEM EVEN FURTHER UNDERGROUND.
I wonder, does Beatrice Nabulya really imagine that we Brits want a hundred thousand Feston Konzanis giving our gullible and brainwashed youth the diseases their own irresponsible behaviour has given them?
Dr Catherine Dodds of Sigma Research said:The Crown Prosecution Service is simply using HIV to increase its profile with AN IGNORANT PUBLIC... THROWING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS NO WAY TO MANAGE AN EPIDEMIC AS COMPLEX AND STIGMATISED AS HIV... Voluntary agencies... need to recognise that THEIR PRIORITY LIES IN PROMOTING THE RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV.
Did you get the
‘ignorant public’ bit? That's us Ms Dodds is talking about. You know, the morons who are going to get HIV in future if we keep on molleycoddling the AIDS-infector in this country, as she seems to be saying ought to be the case.
Rhon Reynolds, policy officer for the African HIV Policy Network, said:
WE SEE NO BENEFIT IN CRIMINALISING INTENTIONAL OR RECKLESS TRANSMISSION OF HIV... Recent convictions are PARTICULARLY PROBLEMATIC FOR AFRICAN COMMUNITIES who already face a deluge of negative public policy that affects HOW THEY LIVE THEIR LIVES...
Disclosure of HIV status is hard for many living with HIV, but particularly difficult for many Africans living in the UK, A COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY DISADVANTAGED BY HIV INFECTION. THE CONVICTIONS TO DATE HAVE DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED AFRICAN MIGRANTS who are already socially, culturally and/or economically marginalized. In the UK, the spectre and reality of INSTITUTIONAL AND STATE RACISM IS NOWHERE GREATER EVIDENCED THAN IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
The reason Africans with AIDS are over here getting themselves banged up and costing us £15,000 a year is precisely because of the way
‘they live their lives.’ According to Rhon Reynolds, a criminal justice system that wishes to impede the
‘socially, culturally and/or economically marginalized’ African with HIV, who wants to carry on behaving as irresponsibly over here as he did in Africa, is
‘institutionally racist.’Well, we've all heard that one before, haven't we?
Lisa Power, head of policy and public affairs for the AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, said:We want the judiciary to understand that PRISON IS AN INAPPROPRIATE SENTENCE FOR SOMEONE WITH HIV... HIV PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION are also being exacerbated by the language used and assumptions made by legal authorities and the media during these criminal proceedings.
If a bloke who knew he had AIDS, made love to your daughter without protection and didn't bother to tell her he was infected, and then your daughter contracted the disease, would you think that ‘
prison is an inappropriate sentence for someone with HIV?’If you would, God help your daughter.
Michelle Reid, chief executive of the George House Trust, said:WE HAVE CONSISTENTLY OPPOSED THE CRIMINALISATION OF HIV TRANSMISSION... These court decisions mean people with HIV now have to live with the added fear of prosecution. Putting people in prison for passing on a virus does absolutely nothing to stop new infections. It won’t stop the spread of HIV...
I’m convinced that we’re witnessing the first few steps of a disastrous journey that will eventually see criminalisation of HIV-positive people. THE REAL CRIME HERE IS THE CONTINUING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV. GHT WILL CONTINUE TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST THESE POINTLESS PROSECUTIONS... Is this just further evidence of the public’s abiding hatred and fear of anything to do with HIV and AIDS?
‘Hatred and fear of anything to do with HIV and AIDS’ is an interesting way of putting it. I think it's absolutely rational for someone who doesn't have the disease to have a
‘hatred and fear’ of catching it, don't you?
Bernard Forbes, chairman of the UKC, says:Jailing people for reckless transmission will not cut onward transmission.
Oh, but it will, Bernard. It will put the reckless transmittor out of commission for the length of time he's off the streets.
Commons sense and honesty, eh? Wherever did they go?
Yusef Azad, director of policy for National Aids Trust, added:NAT opposes criminal prosecution for reckless transmission... There is no evidence prosecuting reckless transmission will reduce high risk behaviour or the number of those infected. There are good grounds for believing IT WILL INCREASE LEVELS OF HIV-RELATED STIGMA AND PREJUDICE... The result will inevitably be unjust outcomes for already marginalised people. ALL THREE MEN CONVICTED TO DATE IN ENGLAND HAVE BEEN BLACK AFRICAN MIGRANTS.
'All three men convicted to date in England have been black African migrants' because they're the a***holes doing the
‘reckless’ infecting, for goodness sake!
Peter Smit, chair of HIV Association of the Netherlands, and member of the EU HIV law group, said:Lack of HIV-specific provisions in the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act provides defendants and their barristers with an important legal defence that seems to have been missed. It comes from ARTICLE 7 OF THE EUROPEAN TREATY ON HUMAN RIGHTS... Appeals using this defence would enable the defendants to submit the case… to the European Court of Human Rights.
So, refer the matter to Brussels and they'll ensure the average Brit gets screwed yet again. Been there, done that.
Twenty years ago, Chris Smith, former MP for Islington South and Finsbury, declared his own homosexuality, saying:
‘I’m gay, so what?’ Smith opined thus at
Positive Nation:I’ve been HIV positive for 17 years… I’ve always regarded it as something which is entirely a personal matter. I’ve been perfectly fit and well SO SAW NO NEED TO SAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE… I think that most people with HIV act responsibly.
Unlike you, eh Chris? And even of the majority do
'act responsibly', what about those who don't? Who protects us from them?
Stella Zuze, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe, arrived in the UK in 2002 on a six-month visa and shortly afterwards discovered she had HIV. She said:
In Zimbabwe they will not believe that I have HIV… They will not believe that someone with Aids can look so well… I like what that MP Chris Smith said: ‘I’m HIV positive, so what? HIV doesn’t stop me getting on with my life… AFRICANS WHO COME HERE FEEL THEY ARE ONLY DOING EXACTLY WHAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE DID IN AFRICA WHEN THEY COLONISED IT…
I want other African people to see me and say: ‘She is HIV positive... She is not hiding, stigma is not killing her. I want to encourage people to come to HIV organisations and volunteer.
I wonder if she means
‘I want to encourage people to come to HIV organisations IN ENGLAND and volunteer?’George Alagiah, the BBC's Six O'clock News presenter, addressed the assembled worthies at introduction of the APPG-Aids report saying:I come from an immigrant family. In a world of porous boundaries and global inequality, where people want to better themselves, IMMIGRATION IS AS NATURAL, AND UNSTOPPABLE, AS WATER FLOWING DOWNHILL...
There is now a general fear and unease about asylum seekers and immigrants coming into Britain but the major problem is not so much about racism and prejudice as a lack of sound information… Britain has accepted fewer immigrants and asylum seekers than many other countries in Western Europe but the MYTH persists that BRITAIN IS A SOFT TOUCH FOR IMMIGRANTS and also that THEY ARE SWAMPING THIS COUNTRY.
It ain't no myth, George. It's very, very real.
As regards the
'natural' thing, mass immigration of the kind that has taken place here over the last fifty years is about as
'natural' as it is for us to put everyone else on the planet first in the land that our ancestors made. There is no precedent for it in all human history outside of a great war. I should think you are as aware of this as the rest of the pro-immigrant, PC brigade.
Dr Amrit Wilson, a researcher from the Department of Politics at the University of Huddersfield, said this:ALL BRITISH PEOPLE GROW UP IN THE CONTEXT OF A RACIST IDEOLOGY. HIV IS FRAUGHT WITH RACISM AND ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE AT THE SHARP END OF THIS.
Yep, we're all racists for not wanting the alien hordes colonising our country and changing it for the worse. We're all racists for not wanting any more Amrits coming over here to tell us all what racists we are for the umpteenth time.
Has anyone out there ever wondered why the Amrits keep on coming when we're all so horrible? Why are they all so desperate to join us when everyone must realise by now what dreadful people we are?
In an interview with
Positive Nation's, Kwangu Liwewe, Jo Cole, a non-homosexual HIV-positive woman had something rather different to say.
THE GAY AND AFRICAN HIV COMMUNITIES GET MOST OF THE SUPPORT WHILE WE HETEROSEXUALS GET NOTHING. What we need is fairness. I’m sick of walking into HIV organisations and finding services are just for these two communities. Who is supporting us?… I’m not asking for special treatment but equality.
Does any PC activist out there give a damn about the Jo Coles? Who’s going to point the finger and sneer on their behalf, I wonder?
This is the front cover of an edition of Positive Nation, 'the UK's HIV and sexual health magazinePositive Nation put this question to its readership:In your view should the Crown prosecute intentional and reckless transmission of HIV?
Only 11 percent of the respondents to this question who admitted to being HIV themselves thought that anyone who recklessly transmitted the virus to another should be prosecuted. Only 24 percent of those who stated that they were not HIV-positive thought they should be so prosecuted.
Do you not see what we're up against here? Apart from the pro-
'intentional and reckless' opinions of the magazine's readers, all of the high-powered worthies mentioned above would not have imprisoned any irresponsible HIV carrier either!
If anyone out there sympathises with their views, you’re not on the side of the women and girls infected by Konzani, that’s for sure.