Barely ten days after its promulgation by the President of Senegal, the new law tightening the penalties for homosexuality in this West African country has claimed its first victim.
Six years of prison without parole for homosexuality. That is the sentence handed down by Senegalese justice to a 24-year-old man under the new law, passed in March by the Parliament of Dakar, tightening the penalties for homosexual relations, defined as an “act against nature” in the same category as bestiality or necrophilia.
A laborer by trade, the accused had been arrested on April 2 in Pikine, in the suburb of the Senegalese capital. “A witness asserts having caught two individuals behaving suspiciously. After approaching, he says he observed a compromising scene involving two men,” reports the media Senenews. One of them fled, while Mbaye Diouf [the condemned man, ndlr] was apprehended on the spot before being taken to the police station.” In addition to imprisonment, the Pikine-Guédiawaye district court imposed a fine of two million CFA francs (€3,000).
Petition for humanitarian visas
This conviction comes amid a wave of strong anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in Senegal, marked in particular by a series of arrests for alleged homosexuality. In this predominantly Muslim West African country, Islamists have for years pressed for a harsher criminalization of homosexuality. The new law, passed unanimously, now punishes homosexual relations with five to ten years of prison, as well as fines of up to 10 million CFA francs (€15,000).
In France, Stop Homophobia reports a multiplication of emergency calls from Senegalese people terrified by the climate of persecution, who are seeking to flee their country. The association is calling on the government to issue emergency humanitarian visas to them, joining the petition launched in this regard by former Paris city official Jean-Luc Romero: “Mr. President, grant humanitarian visas to LGBTQIA+ people of Senegal!”
