Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...African nation criminalizes homosexuality
11.25.2008 4:33pm EST
(Bujumbura) The lower house in the central African nation of Burundi has passed legislation making homosexuality a federal crime.
The legislation, which must first be approved by Burundi’s senate, is part of a sweeping reform of the country’s legal system that for the first time abolishes the death penalty and creates laws on genocide.The new law also protect women and children from all forms of violence – especially sexual violence.
Burundi is struggling to emerge from a civil war that has resulted in more than 300,000 deaths since 1993. The provisions on genocide and the abolition of the death penalty are considered part of the healing process, but increasingly, hardliners have blamed many of the country’s problems on gays.
A negotiated peace settlement, brokered with the assistance of a number of African states, has led to the installation of a multi-party government.
The bill has the backing of President Pierre Nkurunziza. While almost all lawmakers in the lower house approved the legislation a number opposed the criminalization of homosexuality.
MP Catherine Mabobori said the provision tarnished the high ideals of the other parts of the bill.
“Unfortunately, this penal law is also a regression because it now makes homosexuality a criminal offense, whereas it had been tolerated until now,” said Mabobori who abstained during the vote.
Under the legislation, anyone convicted of homosexuality would be sentenced to a two-year term in prison.
“Imprisoning people simply because of who they love offends every principle of human rights practice, which is to ensure dignity and respect for all people,” said Paula Ettelbrick, the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission .
“This is less about sexuality and more about the visibility of a growing community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Africa refusing to be treated as dirt. These laws are meant to silence and terrorize our community and must be stopped,” Ettelbrick said in a statement.
Two-thirds of African nations maintain criminal penalties for consensual same-sex behavior. In recent years, several countries, including Nigeria and Uganda, have threatened to strengthen laws against homosexuality.
A new criminal code in Zimbabwe broadens the definition of sodomy to include “any act that involves physical contact… that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act.”
The United Nations has condemned laws that criminalize homosexuality as being violations of the rights to privacy and equality and has called upon member states that maintain such laws to review them. Members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights have condemned physical attacks on and the imprisonment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Africa, you are on your own now.
I do understand the hurt that this legislation causes. However I am just shocked by the amount of racist BS I have read in most of the comments!
Before complaining about the political decisions of various African nations’ MPs, you should take a good hard look at yourselves and get active in cleaning up your own mess. You are speaking from a position of white privilege and are totally oblivious of the third world countries’ exploitation you are benifiting from:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
I find it rather sad that we are doing the very same thing we are blaming those african mps for: refusing to see the amount of hurt they/we are causing/participating in.
You guys know nothing about past and current African history and I bet you could not even locate Burundi on a map!
The headline needs tweaking. It should read, “African Nation Criminalizes Human Beings.”
I can locate Burindi on the map, by the way. It’s right next to Rwanda.
Any free thinking person should be outraged, but it’s sad that some of us react to intolerance with more intolerance. The one sure thing that the passing of the law tells us, is that some laws seldom represent the opinion of sensible people (most progressive minded Americans would agree with me), and I say this because I am one Burundian who feels she was grossly misrepresented.
stop all aid to the country
stop all of it’s citizen’s to visit our free countries .in the UN we need a law to out law these stupid laws.
This is exactly the direction I will take my petition to prevent gay marriage. Not only should homosexuality not be accepted but it should be a crime punishable by imprisonment.
Dave Said: “This is exactly the direction I will take my petition to prevent gay marriage. Not only should homosexuality not be accepted but it should be a crime punishable by imprisonment.”
Dave, good luck with that. Unfortunately for you, most Americans are not that stupid or un-American. Why don’t you move to a country that already enshrines your particular brand of hatred and homophobia and the country that was founded on the belief that “all men are created equal” will be better off without you. Luckly for you, stupidity isn’t punishable by imprisonment.
Riiiight, because the punishment for consensual romantic and/or sexual relationships between men ought to involve putting them in a place surrounded by men and in the absence of women. Because there is no man sex in prison.
Where do you propose bank robbers be punished? Should we lock them in bank vaults?
You’re lucky, Dave, that not all kinds of stupid are painful.
Since the begining of HIV epidemic 500,000 gay men have died mostly from anal sex here in America.With a prevalence rate of 25% in the gay community and the rise of iv drug use among young gay males we must reflect among ourselves how to stop this.HIV infection is spread by behavior.By changing behavior the epidemic could be stopped in its tracts.Reliance on condoms and antiviral drugs is an excuse to avoid ones personal responsibility for engaging in a form of behavior which kills.What really hurts is the cavalier attitude underlying this which demonstrates a callous disregard for human life.It is this attitude which demeans life itself.Anyone who engages in behavior which endangers another human being in my opinion is a felon.Pills and condoms are not the answer.If you think that I am invading your bedroom I am not for the Grim Reaper is already doing that.
It is not yet a law. It sounds similar to the former laws of many US states. If we don’t give up on Texas, Utah, Virginia, Idaho … the list goes on, maybe we should cut them some slack. .. If only for the sake of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people there.
Dave said: This is exactly the direction I will take my petition to prevent gay marriage. Not only should homosexuality not be accepted but it should be a crime punishable by imprisonment.
——-
DAVE, PLEASE DO JUST THAT!!!!! AN IGNORANT AND BIGOTED PETITION LIKE THAT WOULD SHOW AMERICANS JUST HOW HATEFUL THE FOES OF EQUALITY ARE. THE OUTRAGE WOULD ENSURE THAT GAY MARRAIGE LAWS WOULD PASS THROUGHOUT AMERICA AND EQUALITY WOULD REIGN!!! DO IT DAVE! START GETTING YOUR BIGOT FRIENDS TO SIGN THAT PETITION OF YOURS. I DOUBLE DARE YA!!!!
To Janik:
ALL cultures historically at one time or another have been exploited.
It is the nature of competition and the evolution of social morale.
That is the point.
While part of the human society has evolved to realize that caring for each other and supporting each other results in the social and technological advancement of the species as a whole, there are those segments of mankind which have not evolved thru their exploitation.
European whites were probably never more exploited than during the genesis of the industrial revolution. Workhouses, child-labor, working for less money than it took to live to be able to work, endentured servitude, the entire concept of company stores and company living quarters.
And yet, thru this exploitation, the COMMON NON-”privileged” European white segment still managed to evolve, to elevate itself into what you view as a “privileged” state of being.
What? You think the descendents of the displaced Irish, the ENSLAVED WHITE EUROPEAN (hey, YOU brought up history! You conveniently have forgotten that DURING THE SAME TIME OF AFRICAN SLAVERY EXPLOITATION, white Europeans were ALSO ENSLAVED–Not to mention the centuries long enslavement of the Jews); the descendents of the virtually genocided Celts caught between the Christians/Muslims in their theocratic conflicts which continue to this day;
Do you think all of these white European descendents just woke up one day to indoor plumbing and rampant literacy?
puh-leeeeez…
The only difference, HISTORICALLY, that one can definitely put their finger on is that these white Europeans DIDN’T HAVE OTHER COUNTRIES POURING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO “AID” FOR THEM TO EVOLVE.
They WORKED. They put extreme amounts of time and energy into LEARNING and becoming technologically savvy.
So…let us compare that evolution to what has happened in Africa that I have personally witnessed for the last 40 years.
I am now 51 years old. I do NOT recall a time in my life when there were NO commercials on television in this country calling for “aid” to the poor, uneducated, unmedicated, incapable, war-torn, famine-wrenched AFRICAN!
The Irish as a society lived through a famine…and then didn’t have another one!
American white European descendents lived through at least one major financially catastrophic and agriculturally devastating (Dust Bowl) “famine” in the laste 20’s/early 30’s, AND HAVE NEVER HAD ANOTHER ONE.
Face it.
AFRICANS DON’T LEARN.
They continue to stagnate, which does more to allow exploitation than anything else.
They continue to repeat the same cycles of want, disease, need, famine, etc. etc. etc. with little to no actual learning or changing from experience.
I contend that this continuation of “aid” is actually a contributing factor to this endless cycle of ineptitude.
Why should the people of Africa CHANGE or learn to ADAPT when all they have to do is hold their hands out in a pathetic puppy-eyed plea to the nearest TV camera, and us poor suckers just keep shoveling “aid” at them?
Face it: Europeans and white European descendents world wide have faced their eras of exploitation and won thru them thru ingenuity, adaptation, HARD WORK and determination.
So, you want to wallow in history? I suggest you read more history than that which just supports your own conviction of being pathetic.
Others will stop exploiting Africa when Africans, like everyone else, simply stand up and take care of themselves and stop looking to the rest of us who fight everyday to persevere and IMPROVE to rescue them.
It’s an old adage, but it is true:
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Dear Robert Mosely.
Syphilis and ghonnorea (sic) have killed far more human beings than HIV ever could or ever will and are still doing so.
So, since heterosexuals are responsible for these STD’s, then the very things you call for for homosexuals due to HIV should be called down upon heterosexuals as well.
Just thought I’d let ya know.
BTW, if HIV is such a gay problem…just like whether gay people get married or not…Why do you care?
What does HIV have to to with you, as a heterosexual, since it’s a homosexual disease?
What does same-sex marriage have to do with you, as a heterosexual?
Also, if HIV is such a concern of yours, wouldn’t legal same-sex monogamous marriage actually go a long way in preventing the spread of HIV?
As usual with you theocrats: thinking and logic really don’t have much to do with your life experience, do they?
Ummm…Actually HIV began as a BLACK HETEROSEXUAL disease in central africa. So…nope! Ya can’t go pinning the aids disease on us homos! Grow up negros! The truth is oftentimes very VERY hard to bear.
Africa as a nation produces absolutely NOTHING except, poverty, war and bloodshed! Cut off ALL aid to these half assed negro hicks and their idiotic belief and social systems! We’ve been pumping BILLIONS of $$$ into Africa since when???? The early eighties! What’s become of all the $$$?!? Has africa actually advanced as a nation?!? Time to turn the money drain spigot off and let these religious morons learn to take care of themselves for a change!