Even After Death, Abuse Against Gays Continues

[racaulk]

Bodies of gays in Senegal desecrated amid rising homophobia across Africa



Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in this corner of the world any more.

Madieye Diallo's body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.

The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.

"I locked myself inside my room and didn't come out for days," says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo's who is ill with HIV. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?"

A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries.

In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for 'repeat offenders.' And in South Africa, the only country that recognizes gay rights, gangs have carried out so-called "corrective" rapes on lesbians.

<---snip--->

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=10348377

[virgogal]

1. Aaaaaah,Africa. And people complain about the USA.

[chollybocker]

5. The violence against gays in Africa

has been stoked for decades by American fundies and American RW politicians. Feel free to look it up.

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. And before Americans, by European Christians; for *centuries*, really.

From wiki:

>>>Africa

Though often ignored or suppressed by European explorers and colonialists, homosexual expression in native Africa was also present and took a variety of forms. Anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle.<141> E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in the northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. The practice had died out by the early 20th century, after Europeans had gained control of African countries, but was recounted to Evans-Pritchard by the elders to whom he spoke.<142>
The first recorded homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an Egyptian male couple, who lived around the 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs.>>>>>

[chollybocker]

11. That is awesome.

:) Thanks.

"The first recorded homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an Egyptian male couple, who lived around the 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs."

And I bet they had great dinner parties, too. ;)

[QC]

13. Senegal is 95% Muslim. n/t

[Smarmie Doofus]

14. True. But like Christianity, Islam is a transplant .

It would be interesting to see if this catastrophic hysteria extends to areas where indigineous belief systems are still strong.

[Toasterlad]

15. If Only These Africans Had Minds Of Their Own, And Were Able To Make Their Own Decisions!

I'm sure they wouldn't dig up the bodies of gay people and leave them outside the houses of their elderly parents!

:eyes:

No one hates organized religion more than I do, but these people are responsible for their own evil. There is NO excuse for what they've done.

None.

[chollybocker]

16. I chose the word "stoked" intentionally.

No doubt the roots of any ism run deep. I was poking at the US fundies growing influence in the horrors happening in Africa.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. ofcourse we complain about the US. its where we live and are still miles from being

legally equal.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

12. And Don't Think For a Moment...

that they wouldn't do the same thing over here if they were allowed to. They would, no question. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but there has been an uptick in anti-GLBT violence and in the rhetoric which triggers it.

As for complaining, we are, by and large, US citizens. We have the right to complain, and there is still a fair bit to complain about.

[jeremyfive]

2. I Told My Travel Agent the Safari is Definitely O-U-T

With policies like these in Africa, I wouldn't be able to distinguish the animals from the humans.

[sui generis]

3. I'm telling you

we need to learn to take care of ourselves, or at least make them think twice about nastiness.

It's a marvelous dream that our kids might one day live in a world free of violence and hatred, but that's not this time, now.

If I lived in a country like Senegal, in fear for my life, with nothing else to lose, I'd start disappearing them before they disappeared me.

And I promise you one thing for absolutely certain. If somebody dug up my child's body and dumped it on my doorstep, there isn't a thing in heaven or hell that would save you from me.

[HillbillyBob]

6. Fucking Evilgelicals.

God how I hate them. I had to defend my home with a shotgun one time when they ran a 6-8 months of banging on my door early on every sat morning when they knew I worked late nights on Fridays (2 and 3 jobs) trying to come into my home to bring me gawd. Then rocks and bottles thrown against the house a place we had bought and were working to restore, other vandalism and theft of my building materials to make a cross which they propped against the house and tried to light..
I gave them a fucking light..from a 12g shotgun..the pigs wrote me a ticket, but would not go after them cause 'fags dont have no rights'. I will never go back to nazi bama.
We started keeping guns loaded here. I doubt anyone will bother us, but I have faced down lynch mobs and evilgelicals face to face before. Im too sick to fight now but I can still hold and aim a gun.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Monsters

[Toasterlad]

7. Unspeakable Evil.

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. Lovely that they have home rule, isn't it?

This is what happens when barbarians govern themselves.