Source: Afrol News, BBC News, AfricaNews
Conditions in Senegal are getting worse for gay people, according to human rights activists, after a court jailed nine men to eight years imprisonment for indecent conduct and unnatural acts, Afrol News reports.
The men, all aged under 30, were arrested in December in the Dakar suburb of Mbao. They appeared in court on Tuesday and were convicted of "indecent conduct and unnatural acts".
But what sparked anger and frustration among rights groups was the heavy sentence of eight years pronounced by the presiding judge. The maximum sentence for such a crime in Senegal is five years, but the judge said that the accused were also involved in criminal activities, AfricaNews reports.
Most of them belonged to an association set up to fight HIV and AIDS.
Their jailing has been condemned by local and international human rights groups.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Senegal but the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) told the BBC it was "shocked by the ruling".
"There have been pretty consistent human rights violations... in Senegal," IGLHRC's Cary Alan Johnson told the BBC's Network Africa program from Cape Town in South Africa.
"But the extremity of this sentence [and] the rapidness of the trial all really shocks us in a country which has been moving so positively towards rule of law and a progressive human rights regime."
The president of RADDHO, a Senegalese human rights movement, Khady N’Diaye, also deplored the court's action, "This severe sentence is coming to complicate the more the situation of gay people in this country," N'Diaye said, according to AfricaNews.
The head of a gay rights organization in Senegal told AFP news agency that the situation for gay people in the country was getting worse.
"Many gays are already fleeing to neighboring countries because of our living conditions," he said according to BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Issa Diop, one of the four defense lawyers representing the men said the sentence passed on Tuesday, was the harshest sentence ever to be passed by the courts against gays, Afrol News reports.
"This is the first time that the Senegalese legal system has handed down such a harsh sentence against gays," Diop said, according to BBC.
Diop said he would appeal the sentence, according to Afrol News.
Under Senegalese penal code, homosexual acts are punishable by imprisonment of between one and five years and a fine of US $200 to $3,000 CFA francs.
In February 2008, a magazine editor received death threats after publishing pictures claiming to depict a wedding ceremony between two men. Several men and women were also arrestedGay rights groups condemn arrests in Senegal for 'gay wedding' in connection with the publication but later released, Afrol News reports.
According to IGLHRC many gay men and lesbians were attacked by mobs or driven from their homes following the report.
Gay men and lesbian are marginalized in Senegalese society, but IGLHRC's Johnson described legal and cultural attitudes toward gay people in Senegal as "schizophrenic".
"There's both a movement towards progressive and inclusive culture but at the same time very, very strong movements towards oppression, specifically towards sexuality," Johnson told the BBC..
Religious attacks on gay and lesbian people have been on the increase, but Senegal also recently played host to a major conference on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, where "the needs of men who have sex with men were prominently featured", he said.
Source: afrol News - Gays fear for life after harsh sentencing of nine | Afrol News
Senegal: Gay men get eight-year sentence | AfricaNews
Shock at Senegal gay jail terms | BBC News