UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned against approving the measure, arguing that it flies in the face of dignity, privacy, and equality<\/p>\n
Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has signed into law a measure that toughens penalties for same-sex relations and criminalizes the “promotion” and financing of homosexuality.<\/p>\n
UN human rights chief Volker Turk called the bill “harmful” and urged the president not to sign it. It was approved by parliament in March by 135 votes, with three abstentions.<\/p>\n
The new law doubles prison sentences for what the authorities call “unnatural acts,” including homosexuality, bisexuality, “transsexuality,” zoophilia, and necrophilia, from the previous 1-5 years to 5-10 years, while also increasing maximum fines to 10 million CFA francs ($17,680). Reports on the text say judges are also barred from handing down suspended sentences or reducing prison terms below the established minimum.<\/p>\n
Homosexual relations were already illegal in the Muslim-majority country under a 1966 provision. Backers of the measure, including religious groups, cast it as a defense of traditional values.<\/p>\n
In February, police arrested 12 men under the existing laws on suspicion of committing “acts against nature,” and in some cases, the “voluntary transmission” of HIV. Non-profit groups, including Human Rights Watch, said the crackdown risked endangering LGBTQ people and undermining HIV-related outreach.<\/p>\n
In astatementon March 12, the UN human rights chief said the law should not be enacted, warning that it “flies in the face” of rights to dignity, privacy, and equality.<\/p>\n
Turk also urged the Senegalese government to “repeal the existing discriminatory law” and uphold the rights of all people in Senegal without discrimination.<\/p>\n
Several African nations have maintained their stance despite pressure to abandon plans to criminalize same-sex relations.<\/p>\n
The US removed Uganda from a key duty-free trade program, and the World Bank froze new loans after Kampala passed an anti-LGBTQ law in May 2023 imposing the death penalty for certain same-sex acts and up to 20 years in prison for promoting homosexuality.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Ghana’s Finance Ministry warned that the country could lose $3.8 billion in World Bank funding if the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill approved by parliament is signed into law.<\/p>\n
(RT.com)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned against approving the measure, arguing that it flies in the face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[88151,13782,88155,88156,88154,6649,88150,88153,159,88152],"class_list":["post-168421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-senegal","tag-and-equality","tag-chief","tag-dignity-privacy","tag-existing","tag-flies","tag-including","tag-measure","tag-privacy-and","tag-senegal","tag-warned"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116338376238539697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}