The subject of gay rights came up at a student forum attended by French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon (L) and Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko (R) (c)AFP
A Senegalese court has jailed two men for “spreading false news” after they accused Ousmane Sonko, the country’s new prime minister, of tolerating homosexuality.
Activist Bah Diakhate and Imam Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Ndao were jailed for three months and fined 100,000 CFA francs ($165, £130) each.
They had been angered that Mr Sonko had allowed a visiting French politician to express his support for same-sex marriages.
Homosexual acts are banned in the mainly Muslim West African country and are punishable by up to five years in prison.
The political activist and the preacher were arrested two weeks ago after posting a video attacking Mr Sonko for giving a platform to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left French politician.
Mr Mélenchon gave his opinion about same-sex marriages at a student forum in the capital, Dakar, in mid-May.
His comments reportedly sparked boos from the audience at Cheikh Anta Diop University.
In response Mr Sonko said that Western countries should show restraint on social matters such as LGBTQ rights as it could “lead to anti-Western sentiment”.
Senegal would continue to manage issues around homosexuality in accordance with its socio-cultural norms, the prime minister said.
He was quoted as saying that homosexuality was “not accepted, but tolerated” in Senegal.
Mr Sonko, a former firebrand opposition leader, was appointed prime minister in April after his ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected president.
They were freed from prison not long before the vote in an amnesty aimed at calming months of political turmoil after the outgoing president had tried to postpone the election.
The pair campaigned on a promise of radical change – with an Afrocentric and nationalist agenda, promising to reset Senegal’s relationship with France, the country’s former colonial power.
Open Letter from the Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa to the Most Rev. Philip Naameh, Chair of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference
05 March 2024
Dear Most Rev. Philip Naameh,
We urge you and the Catholic bishops in Ghana to reconsider your stance toward the now-passed “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Act, 2024.” Ask the President not to assent to it. Pledge to support LGBT+ Ghanaians with human rights advocacy and pastoral care. Take back the religious independence which this Act wrongfully arrogates to the civil authority.
We urge you and your fellow bishops to read the Act carefully. This Act criminalizes people who “hold out as” LGBT+ (section 4.1). It criminalizes spiritual caregivers, family, and friends, who do not immediately report LGBT+ people to the police (sections 4 and 17). And it protects anti-LGBT+ media which styles itself as a “response to any form of advocacy or activism,” no matter how “graphic” or hateful that media may be
Criminalizing people on the basis of their inward dispositions is wrong. As Pope Francis stated on 5 February, 2023: “Criminalising people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.” We urge you to follow the Pope’s leadership.
LGBT+ people often share their thoughts and their struggles with spiritual caregivers, family, and friends. Forcing these caregivers to report LGBT+ people to the police is a shocking overreach of government power. How can spiritual leaders like yourselves tolerate such a provision in the law?
Giving sanction to graphic anti-LGBT+ propaganda in education, instruction, and public media encourages hatred and violence. To support this kind of legalized vitriol is to cry “Peace! Peace!” where there is no peace (Jer 6:14).
Your support for this Act has created panic among many of the LGBT+ people of Ghana, and among many of the people who love them. Those who look to you for action are desperate. Many turn to the Church as a last place of refuge and support. Do not chase souls away. Do not lead our society into greater conflict and vitriol. Do not abandon the persecuted, and lead their persecutors astray.
IDNOWA affirms the teaching of the Catholic Church that LGBT+ people “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity;” that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358).
We believe that our sexual orientations and gender identities belong to God’s creation and are part of his plan for the salvation of humankind, while the Magisterium of the Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and that “under no circumstances can they be approved” (CCC 2357). On this we disagree. But we affirm with you the Magisterium’s teaching on the dignity of LGBT+ people: “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society.” No matter what a person may “hold out” to be, “the intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law” (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 10). On this, all people of good will should agree.
Now that the Act has been passed by Parliament, the Ghanaian government has begun to weigh its costs and its dangers. The bishops, too, should weigh its effects very carefully.
We urge you to ask the President not to assent to it.
We urge you to pledge your support for the human rights of LGBT+ Ghanaians; and for their right to access pastoral care and personal counselling in freedom.
If this law gains Presidential assent, we urge you to support LGBT+ Ghanaians and the people who love them with legal assistance. Give them lawyers and legal support when they are arrested and jailed under this unjust and un-Christian law.
In the past several years, IDNOWA has made efforts to engage with you and the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference, but we have never received an invitation to further dialogue. In the spirit of synodality, ask us to talk with you. Walk together with us, so that you can hear the voices of LGBT+ Ghanaians – both Catholic and non-Catholic. Let us together build a more peaceful, more just society.
Sincerely, Davis Mac Iyalla Executive Director of Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa interfaithdiversitynowa@gmail.com
Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa 