“The General Directorate of Health (DGS) rejects discrimination for any reason, namely sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin or others (article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union)”. It is with this statement that the Portuguese Health Authority explains the criticism made to the poster that, on the morning of this Monday, December 1st, he published on his social networks to mark World AIDS Day.
The poster, which the DGS says is from an original UN/AIDS campaign — as DN confirmed — sparked negative reactions as soon as it was published on the Portuguese Health Authority’s Instagram and Facebook, as it conveyed the message “AIDS is not over yet” with an image with three black people with their fists raised. Immediately, comments on the poster began to be associated with an “inadmissible image”, “ignorance”, “stigmatization” and even “racist”.
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But, as the DGS explains to DN, the objective was to publicize this year’s UN/AIDS campaign, which warns that “AIDS has not yet ended and that there is still a way to go, across the world, to mitigate the risks and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals goal of ending AIDS by 2030”.
In the response to our newspaper it is further added that the intention of “Sharing the original UNAIDS (UNAIDS) post” was “contributing to the perception of the message and its origin, and always in full respect for human rights”.