The National Assembly of Senegal has voted to double the prison terms for homosexuality from 5 to 10 years.
A burst of joy in the Parliament of Dakar. The National Assembly of Senegal voted this Wednesday, March 11, for a law hardening the prison sentences for homosexual relations, raised from five to ten years in prison. Adopted unanimously from the 135 votes cast, the text also provides criminal penalties for the “promotion” of homosexuality.
As in several African states, the hardening of homophobic legislation has been a recurring demand for several years. Through street protests, religious associations in this predominantly Muslim country are demanding the criminalization of homosexuality – currently a crime – on the basis of propaganda that portrays it as an instrument used by Westerners to impose allegedly foreign values. “Senegal is a country open to the world. But this openness cannot justify that we renounce our values,” said the Senegalese Interior Minister, Mouhamadou Bamba Cissé, during the examination of the text, which he called a “beautiful law.”
Arrests of homosexuals
The passage of the new legislation comes in a context of dozens of arrests of alleged homosexuals, accused of “acts against nature”, pedophilia or deliberate transmission of HIV. “This law wipes out two decades of public health policies directed toward the specificities and needs of LGBTIQ+ people in Senegal (…). The publication of the serological status of some accused individuals in the media and the practice of forced testing infringe their fundamental rights,” warns the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
This climate fueled a particularly virulent debate in the Dakar National Assembly. “Homosexuals will no longer breathe in this country. Homosexuals will no longer have freedom of expression in this country… Enough, we have values,” proclaimed at the podium Deputy Diaraye Ba, from the party of Senegalese African Patriots for Work, Ethics and Brotherhood (PASTEF). The latter, which identifies as left-wing, was founded by Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who had made the hardening of the anti-homosexuality law a campaign issue.
