WHILE ACT UP’S POLITICAL WORK BECOMES INSTITUTIONALISED AND MEMORIALISED, THE MYTH PERSISTS THAT HIV NO LONGER KILLS ~ Chrys Papaioannou ~ As the campaigns, slogans and direct actions of the legendary activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), originally formed in New York in 1987, enter history books, exhibition rooms and cinema screens, our fight to save the lives being lost to AIDS has never been more urgent. While ACT UP’s political work becomes institutionalised and memorialised, today the persistent myth that HIV no longer kills is only made worse by deadly political decisions that decimate disability welfare, fund militarist expansion and genocide, and remove aid and access to HIV- prevention and HIV-treatment medication from those most at risk. This year, for the first time since 1988, the US Government did not commemorate World AIDS Day, with State Department employees being told not to promote World AIDS Day through any communication channels (whether via social media, media engagements or public speeches). It is difficult not to view this vile disregard for all those who have lost their children, friends, and lovers in light of a longer history of eugenicist policies and remarks made by fascist politicians, such as Nigel Farage who, in 2014, called for people who are living with HIV to be banned from migrating to the UK and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France who, in 1987, publicly stated that AIDS is a form of leprosy, proposing that people with AIDS be forcibly isolated. It was on World AIDS Day this year, 1 December 2025, a grey and gloomy Monday morning, that I and dozens of others from the wider ACT UP London network left our homes early, put on our waterproofs, and headed to Trafalgar Square to remember the dead and fight for the living. ACT UP London is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the HIV pandemic. I had seen pictures of die-ins before but no pictures and no video footage of any die-in could capture what it felt like to participate in this poignant act of solidarity. As we surrounded the Equestrian Statue of King Charles I in the small traffic island opposite Nelson’s column, the Big Ben within sight, the thirty minutes spent lying on the cold pavement with our eyes closed felt like a lifetime. Light drizzle gave way to heavy rain and the wind kept blowing our makeshift cardboard gravestones away. The cardboard gravestones themselves told the story of consecutive governments failing us – Tory cuts, Labour cuts, decades and decades of misinformation, stigma and violence inflicted through corporate greed and state neglect. Just this November, the UK government announced a 15% reduction in the country’s contribution to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. According to the Terrence Higgins Trust, “in November 2024, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) stated that it is unlikely that we will meet the 2025 targets, but the 2030 target of zero new HIV transmissions is within our reach.” And yet, not only has the 2025 goal not been met, but it looks even more unlikely that the goal of “no new HIV transmissions by 2030” will be met either. In a carceral neoliberal context where class, race and citizenship status cruelly determine who is likely to live a long healthy life with HIV and who is not, there are thousands and thousands of people who cannot access daily oral PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and the twice-yearly injectable drug Lenacapavir. Widespread stigma associated with being HIV-positive is further exacerbated by the societal stigma experienced by sex workers and people who inject drugs (PWID), with scarce needle and syringe programmes (NSP) allowing people to access free and sterile equipment, and whorephobia and the criminalisation of sex work – whether through the Nordic or other models – preventing sex workers from accessing healthcare: “Punitive environments have been shown to limit the availability, access and uptake of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for sex workers and their clients”, report UNAIDS. It might seem that all we demand is for Warfare Britain to turn into Welfare Britain. But fighting to end AIDS – zero new transmissions, zero new deaths, zero stigma – means fighting to end the very crux where state violence, racial capitalism and ethno-nationalism intersect. The hard-earned victories of our queer elders mean that ‘gay cancer’ can no longer be the homophobic stick with which they beat us. But turn your gaze not so far from here, to a busy pedestrian street in central Athens, and you find the lingering ghost of queer activist Zak Kostopoulos (open about his HIV-positive status and known for his gay rights activism) who in 2018 was brutally beaten to death by civilians and the police. Still lying on the cold wet pavement, I open my eyes to gaze at the sky. A nothingness almost, an ever-expanding grey with no variation. I hear the name of Zak Kostopoulos, of Derek Jarman, of Natalie Caroline Wells and her son Judd Conrad Morgan Wells, both of whom passed away in London the other week, days apart. My sight catches a glimpse of the Union Jacks hanging from the nearby buildings and then of a small flock of birds dispersing and reorienting. Silence still equals death. And until Britain’s war machine is dismantled and healthcare is free for all, we know that we will not be choosing silence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos by Holly Buckle @stickypicnic, video by Joseph Wilson   The post In AIDS activism, silence (still) equals death appeared first on Freedom News.