Hungary's parliament has passed a law eliminating anonymous HIV testing, and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission is mounting a repeal campaign.

"State medical authorities in Hungary have routinely failed in the past to respect the privacy of sensitive medical information," said IGLHRC Advocacy Coordinator Scott Long.

"Activists from the gay magazine MASOK have documented cases of persons -- whether testing positive or negative for HIV – who were intimidated and threatened by staff at the State Institute of Venereology to reveal names of sexual contacts. They have also found evidence that medical files were conspicuously labeled to indicate the subject's homosexuality. This new policy will open the door to still greater abuses [and result in] fewer people being tested for HIV, driving them underground beyond the reach of counseling and treatment."

IGLHRC urges protests to the Hungarian Parliament (Magyar Orszaggyules) at Orszaghaz, Kossuth ter 1-3, H-1055 Budapest, Hungary.

A Swedish man married under that nation's gay partnership law has filed suit with the European Court of Justice's Court of First Instance demanding that his employer, the European Union Council of Ministers, grant benefits to his husband.

Gay-marriage laws in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden grant all rights of matrimony except access to adoption, artificial insemination and church weddings.

The man, who chose not to be identified, says the council's inaction violates European law, the council's own staff regulations and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Eighty-two percent of 20,000 Greeks who called a TV-station phone-in poll oppose the disbarring of Athens Deputy District Attorney Giorgos Sakellaropoulos for having an extramarital affair with a transsexual who used to be a transvestite hooker.

For his part, Sakellaropoulos, 44, is threatening to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

"I'm guilty, but I disagree with my punishment," he said. "My personal life concerns only me and nobody else."

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