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Loading ...9 Convicted of homosexuality in Senegal
01.08.2009 8:51am EST
(Dakar) Nine men, including a prominent activist, have been convicted of homosexual acts and sentenced to eight years in prison, a gay rights group said Thursday.
Diadji Diouf, who heads an organization that provides HIV prevention services to gay men in Senegal, and the others were arrested Dec. 19 in a raid on Diouf’s apartment.The men were sentenced Wednesday for unnatural acts and criminal conspiracy, said Joel Nana, Africa research and policy coordinator with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Cape Town, South Africa.
“This is the first case that we’ve heard of in Senegal where people actually got sentenced,” Nana said. He called the sentences long and harsh.
Diouf’s organization, AIDES Senegal, provides condoms and HIV treatment out of his home.
The arrests came just weeks after Senegal hosted an international AIDS conference that included gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender participants.
“It is a strong message of hatred, a strong message of division when we know it is critical at this point to address HIV in these communities,” Nana said.
Senegal, a primarily Muslim nation in West Africa, is one of 38 countries on the continent that criminalize homosexual acts, Nana said. South Africa prompted continentwide controversy in 2006 when it became the first African country to legalize gay marriage.
I wouldn’t write off the possibility of change in Africa to easily. After all, Poland and Kazakstan are coming along nicely, Russia and Turkey has to bend to the EU if they wanna join up and even Spain has come around 180 degrees. Even China is feeling the pressure.
It takes some time for change to happen ofcourse but it happens quicker after it’s happened somewhere else. Here in Sweden we’ve worked for over 50 years and we’re at the point where politicians check with us just to get things right.
With South Africa and the support of the United Nations I think we might be looking at great improvement all round in as little as 20 years, 10 if we put our backs into it.
Why should I, my last post was totally ignored; why should this or any future one be any different.!You people can’t accept the truth and just bury your heads in the sand. I am Gay and proud; at least I admit it.
ABQkevin, spoken like someone that has never visited the “American South.”
Ya know, there are quite a few fine redneck gay and lesbian folk out there.
ABQKevin,
I’m with you. These same countries have those conservative Anglican communions that are now sponsoring the US Episcopalian congregations that want to go back to the old days of no women/gays in the clergy. There’s no talking sense to these types. They have made up their minds and don’t care to be confused with facts.
Of course you express an enlightened, liberal view, dear coxygru paris. But there’s not much chance of “educating” African populations and their leaders anytime soon on the necessity to support western-style human rights for everyone. They’re stuck in primitive ideologies (just like other third world nations and the American South), and there’s not much gay people can do to change that.
ditto for me abqkevin. i wonder when obama’s “whistle stop tour” thru all of these bigoted african nations is going to take place.after he’s done kissing rick warren’s rear end,he will start kissing up to their’s. he needs to be loved more than bill clinton and it appears he needs more love from bigots than the worldwide bglt community and their supporters.
GLBT people, dear ABQkevin, should not boycott African nations. For their own safety, they should steer clear of them! Instead, they should form/join/sponsor groups dedicated to educating African populations and their leaders about the realities of basic human sexuality (same-sex behavior is as old as humankind) and the AIDS health crisis. Their crisis is the entire world’s crisis. We’re all intertwined.
No surprise here. With the exception of South Africa, EVERY country in Africa is viciously anti-gay.
GLBT tourists should boycott these nations and refuse to provide any financial support for their hateful societies.