Senegal court jails nine gay men

[struggle4progress]

Source: BBC

Page last updated at 07:19 GMT, Thursday, 8 January 2009

Nine gay men in Senegal have been sent to jail for "indecent conduct and unnatural acts".

Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal but lawyers for the men said the sentence was the harshest ever handed down to gay men in the country.

The judge added three years to the maximum five-year sentence after ruling that the men were also members of a criminal organisation.

Most of them belonged to an association set up to fight HIV and AIDS ...

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7817100.stm

[sakabatou]

1. Wait... so it's ILLEGAL to try and curtail HIV/AIDS in Sengal?

[Fearless]

2. It certainly makes you think.

:wtf:

[struggle4progress]

3. Senegal: Court Sentences Nine Men to Heavy Jail Sentences for Sodomy (IGLHRC)

On December 19, 2008, police officers raided the apartment of Mr. Diadji Diouf, an important leader in the Senegalese lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and arrested him and seven other men. Mr Diouf, who heads AIDES Senegal, an organization providing HIV prevention services to men who have sex with men (MSM), and his guests were taken to the SICAP Mbao police station where they were detained until December 24 before being transferred to the Maison D’arrêt et de détention de Rebeuss. On January 8, 2008, the nine men appeared in court to respond to charges of criminal conspiracy and engaging in acts against the order of nature. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) was informed that lawyers for the defense had had limited access to case files and little time to prepare for the court hearing. The men were condemned to a sentence of 8 years in jail although the prosecutor had asked for a sentence of 5 years, which is the maximum penalty provided by Senegalese law in sodomy cases ...

http://www.iglhrc.org/site/iglhrc/section.php?id=5&detail=915


HIV/AIDS Policy in Senegal: A Civil Society Perspective
October 2007
OSI

Senegal serves as a model among African countries in its control of HIV/AIDS. The national HIV prevalence rate has been below 1 percent for the past two decades, a success that can be attributed to the country’s timely response to the epidemic. The National AIDS Council has adopted several measures to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS such as promoting condom use, instituting a sentinel surveillance system, and increasing the number of voluntary counseling and testing sites. However, according to stakeholders interviewed for the Public Health Watch report HIV/AIDS Policy in Senegal: A Civil Society Perspective, more than 20 years into the epidemic, the government has made inadequate efforts to target high-risk groups; update national strategies according to emerging priorities, such as the increasing feminization of AIDS; and provide quality services for people living with HIV/AIDS. Interventions aimed at the general population have helped raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, but these prevention efforts have failed to result in measurable behavioral change. Groups particularly vulnerable to HIV—men who have sex with men, mobile and cross-border populations, young people, and women—have been neglected. Furthermore, although legal sex workers have access to routine health care, unregistered sex workers do not, and they are persecuted by law enforcement agencies, which drives these individuals further underground and makes outreach difficult ... http://www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/phw/articles_publications/publications/senegal_20071015

My (entirely unsupported) guess is: the judge was particularly offended by the specific effort to organize in the gay community for AIDS/HIV education and prevention

[Divine Discontent]

9. ignorance knows nothing of wisdom! they are bigots for doing this to them! eom

[OneBlueSky]

4. if certain right wingers had their way, prosecuting gays would be the norm . . .

in this country as well . . . there are those on the extreme rights (notably the Dominionists) who would even like to see gays executed for being who they are . . .

check out some of Kathleen Yurica's excellent work tracking the Dominionist movement to understand the kinds of changes these troglodytes would like to bring about . . . for example . . .

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

[struggle4progress]

5. Great link! Thanks!

[BR_Parkway]

6. Oh now, we just need to be more tolerant of those folks - surely we can

just agree to disagree about a few little things.

Like whether I should get to live or not.

[quickesst]

8. That probably won't happen....

..unless our current Democratic president-elect, soon to be president is undermined by our own to the point that he becomes ineffective, and "the people", out of disgust, and dispair, sweep the GOP into power again. Then there might be cause for worry as to your statement. Another point.

" Oh now, we just need to be more tolerant of those folks - surely we can just agree to disagree about a few little things.
Like whether I should get to live or not."

You're not in Senegal, and penning that statememt as if it is now a matter of fact, is misleading. You do the struggle for equality no favors by "enhancing" the severity of the problem here by trying to equate the situation with that of Senagal. Would the right wing like to do this. For many, yes. Can they? Under the current laws of this country, the one we live in, no. My opinion. Thanks.
quickesst

[BR_Parkway]

11. There are people in this country with the idea that I should be put to

death as well so it's not a mute point or hysterical hypothetical

- you're right - under the current laws, they can't - but they seem to be pretty effective in manipulating others to hate me and mine enough to get the voting public to pass laws that are heading in that direction. In spite of PE Obama's victory this year, plenty of states (including CA) passed many anti LGBT bills about marriage, adoption and such.

It's only been a few years since SCOTUS said the sodomy laws were unconstitutional, up until that time I could have been imprisoned in many US states. And there are plenty who would like to bring those laws back as well.

So no, this isn't exactly the same as the people living in Senegal - but it's not as far from it as some in this country would like to think either.

[rpannier]

7. good read

Lots of good info

Thanks

[juno jones]

10. The dominionists have ties to Africa as well

Warren-Endorsed Nigerian Leader Backed Anti-Gay Laws Worse Than Pre-WW2 Third Reich's by troutfishing

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/12/24/191631/90

I've been following troutfishing and dogemperor's excellent diaries concerning the dominionists. Good articles and lots of raw data. Thank you for the link to Ms Yurica's site.