IGLHRC Action Alert: Arrest in Senegal

From the IGLHRC:

On June 19, 2009, four men from the city of Darou Mousty, in the department of Kébémer in the Louga region, were arrested and subsequently detained at a police station in the city. These four men were arrested for alleged sexual acts “against nature.” There are also reports that the police forced these men to reveal the names of people who are supposedly “homosexual.” The week of August 10, 2009, two of the men were convicted of “unnatural” offenses, despite the only evidence against them being denunciations from townspeople. One man received a sentence of 2 years in prison and the other 5 years. A third man, who is seventeen years old, will stand trial August 24, 2009 in a court for minors. The status of the fourth is unknown.

Senegal is one of the few francophone African countries that criminalizes homosexuality, under Article 319 of the Senegalese Penal Code. Last year, nine members of AIDES Senegal were arrested and sentenced to 8 years in prison for “indecent conduct and unnatural acts” and “conspiracy.” The Court of Appeals in Dakar overturned the sentences in April 2009.

Laws criminalizing and detentions of people because of consensual sex between persons of the same sex are arbitrary and violate international law. Such laws violate Articles 2 and 26 on the rights to equality before the law, freedom from discrimination, and privacy of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as stated in Toonen v. Australia (1994) and by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. In addition, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated its concern over laws that criminalize “homosexual relations, including those of persons under 18 years old” as being impermissible discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (General Comments 3 & 4, Concluding Observations: Chile, April 2007).

The criminalization of consensual same sex relations runs counter to the guarantees of nondiscrimination and equality before the law in Articles 2, 3, and 28 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and Article 7 of the Senegalese Constitution.

For more information on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in Senegal click here.

Action

Join the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) in calling on the Senegalese government to release the men convicted, to not convict the 17-year-old awaiting trial, and to end the pattern of systemic persecution against perceived sexual minorities by repealing Article 319.

Gays Will be Lynched & be “Fish Food”

Looks like Senegal is not going to advance anytime soon when it comes gay rights.  I found the following at Global Post:

“The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” Dakar newspaper L’Observeur quoted a local youth leader as saying.

“Gay men will never be free in Senegal. They expose us all to danger,” said Imam Mbaye Niang, a prominent religious leader and member of parliament. “The judges should understand that Senegalese people need to protect theirchildren, their families from homosexuality.”

Read the entire post by clicking here.

Nine Gay Men Jailed for Eight in Sengal

Nine men have been sentences to 8 years  in prison after being convicted of homosexual acts in Senegal.

According to reports from The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the men were arrested last month and ordered Wednesday to serve eight years (three years longer than the typical sentence) in prison for “engaging in acts against the order of nature.”  The defense for the men was was not given much time to prepare its case.

Diadji Diouf, who lead an organization in Senegal that provides HIV prevention services to gay men, was among those arrested.

Homosexuality is still illegal in many countries in African, with the exception of South Africa, which became the center of controversy when it became the first African country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2006.

West African Entertainer Finds Refuge in New York

Read the entire post at nytimes.com.

Pape Mbaye gets a lot of attention. Even in jaded New York, people watch the way he walks (his style defines the word sashay) and scrutinize his outfits, which on a recent afternoon featured white, low-slung capris, a black purse, eyeliner and diamond-studded jewelry.

And he likes it.

“I’m fabulous,” he said. “I feel good.”

Mr. Mbaye, 24, is an entertainer from Dakar, Senegal, known there for his dancing, singing and storytelling. But while his flamboyance may be celebrated in New York, he attracted the wrong kind of attention in West Africa this year, nearly costing him his life.

In February, a Senegalese magazine published photographs of what was reported to be an underground gay marriage and said that Mr. Mbaye, who appeared in the photos and is gay himself, had organized the event. In the ensuing six months, Mr. Mbaye said, he was harassed by the police, attacked by armed mobs, driven from his home, maligned in the national media and forced to live on the run across West Africa.