By Cynthia Johnston

CAIRO, April 9 (Reuters) - An Egyptian court on Wednesday convicted and jailed five men arrested on morals charges in what rights groups have described as an escalating crackdown on Egyptians living with HIV.

Court sources said the men, four of whom are HIV-positive, were sentenced to three years in jail for the "habitual practice of debauchery", a charge rights groups say is used in Egypt to criminalise consensual homosexual sex acts.

"These convictions are clearly based on ignorance and fear of AIDS rather than on any crime committed," said Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which was involved in the case.

"Police and prosecutors think they are protecting the public, but actually this is the best way to endanger public health by driving vulnerable communities underground."

The men were also fined 300 Egyptian pounds ($55) each, court sources said. They said one of the men was convicted on an additional charge of facilitating debauchery.

Human Rights Watch said Egyptian authorities had detained a total of 12 men since October in what it called a "spreading hunt for people suspected of being HIV-positive". The rights group said the men had been mistreated.

INVESTIGATION

The U.S.-based rights group said the arrests began after police stopped two men having an altercation on a Cairo street. One told police he was HIV-positive, prompting an investigation against both for homosexual conduct and further arrests.

Bahgat said that of the 12 people arrested in the current clampdown, four were convicted on debauchery charges earlier this year while three others were not charged.

Human Rights Watch said Egyptian government doctors, in violation of medical ethics, had tested all the men for HIV without their consent. It said they also performed "forcible and abusive ... examinations" on them to prove they had engaged in homosexual sex.

Rights groups said several of the men had told their lawyers that police and guards had beaten them in detention, and that a prosecutor had told one of them: "People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live".

They said that the men who tested HIV-positive were chained to hospital beds for months.

According to a 2004 study, the majority of Egypt's health workers believe those with HIV should be removed from society, while most university students think "lewd" people or those with "neither values nor principles" are likeliest to get AIDS.

But Egypt has also made progress in combating the spread of HIV. Since 2004, testing for Egyptian nationals has been anonymous, and the Health Ministry has made HIV drugs available free of charge since 2005. ($1 = 5.44 Egyptian pounds) (Writing by Cynthia Johnston)

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