Senegal PM slams West’s ‘homosexual tyranny’, defends LGBTQ crackdown

Human rights groups have criticised the government’s legislation targeting same-sex relationships.

Senegal’s prime minister has condemned the West, accusing it of attempting to impose homosexuality on the West African nation.

Ousmane Sonko made the remarks while addressing the National Assembly on Friday. During his speech, he defended newly introduced laws targeting Senegal’s LGBTQ community as part of a broader crackdown on same-sex relations – measures that have drawn criticism from human rights activists.

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“There is a kind of tyranny. There are eight billion human beings in the world, but there is a small nucleus called the West which, because it has resources and controls the media, wants to impose it [homosexuality] on the rest of the world,” Sonko said.

The new legislation, which came into effect in late March, doubles the prison sentence for same-sex sexual acts from five years to 10. The law also criminalises the financing of same-sex relationships, as well as what it describes as the “glorification of unnatural acts”, a provision that includes the promotion of, or engagement in, homosexual acts.

United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk had urged President Bassirou Diomaye Faye not to enact the legislation, describing it as “deeply worrying”.

“This law exposes people to hate crimes, abuse, arbitrary arrests, blackmail and widespread discrimination in education, health, employment and housing. Furthermore, it restricts the legitimate work of human rights defenders, the media and freedom of expression of everyone in Senegal,” Turk said at the time.

The legislation coincides with an increase in arrests of gay people in Senegal.

In February, 12 males were arrested in the capital, Dakar, for so-called “acts against nature”.

Following their detention, Human Rights Watch called on the government to protect LGBTQ rights and release those arrested. The organisation also called for what it described as “discriminatory and homophobic laws” to be repealed.

Senegal is one of many African nations to adopt harsher anti-LGBTQ laws in recent years.

Sixty-five countries worldwide criminalise same-sex relations, more than half of them in Africa.