Here is Daneshjoo Park (Students park) in central Tehran. Today is 1 Dec, The International AIDS day. They have painted RED RIBBON on their faces and carry a RED RIBBON with many candles in the memory of more than 1000 Iranians who died because of AIDS.

These people (most of them are HIV+) are gathered here to increase the awareness of AIDS in society. These are the members of Positive life(Farsi) and Rainbow society (not a Les/gay society but a AIDS society). Have a look.


Today is my day, can you hear me ?



I am HIV+ (wow.. brave girl!)



group of people with their mottos. This gathering has a license from the government so police did not interfered.



In Iran AIDS was one of the taboos for many years. No official ever talked about it because we were an ISLAMIC regime and AIDS was god's punishment for homosexuals. But after 2 decades, government have accepted the AIDS and lets some NGOs to do some works.

In the first years of AIDS's spread the spread was mainly due to drug addicts and shared injections but in the recent years unsafe / casual sex is also became an AIDS source. The worst part to talk is "case of dirty blood". In that case, many people got HIV / Hepatitis from dirty bloods in hospitals because of an failure in blood testing standards. The good part is these people are now gathered in NGOs and trying to force government to pay back.. but what ? their life ?


I have used photos from Koneshgaran.net