Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…
Gambia Daily Observer front page reported in December 2014 on court action resulting from the country’s anti-gay crackdown. (Photo courtesy of Twitter)
In the Gambia, three men have been acquitted after eight months in prison that followed their arrest in an anti-gay crackdown last November. The Washington Blade reports:
A Gambian court on Thursday acquitted three men who had been charged under the country’s law against “aggravated homosexuality.”
Fatou Camara, a journalist and President Yahya Jammeh’s former press secretary who fled to the U.S. in 2013 after Gambian authorities accused her of seeking to undermine the government, broke the news on her Twitter page.
She told the Washington Blade that the three men who were held at a maximum-security prison in the Gambian capital of Banjul for nearly eight months had been released.
LGBT advocacy groups welcomed the men’s acquittal and release, but noted widespread LGBT rights abuses continue to take place in Gambia. …
Jeff Smith of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights told the Blade these “symbolic gestures in Gambia are certainly a welcome development.” He stressed he nevertheless remains “highly dubious until real democratic reform and measures that respect basic human rights in the country are implemented.”
“A good place to start would be with Gambia’s anti-gay law, which criminalizes same-sex conduct between adults in violation of the rights to privacy and nondiscrimination for LGBT people,” Smith told the Blade.
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh at U.N. headquarters in New York in 2014 (Photo courtesy of amazonaws.com)
Among those who could be charged with “aggravated homosexuality” are “serial offenders” and people living with HIV who are deemed to be gay or lesbian.
Exactly what constitutes “homosexuality” or a “homosexual act” is not defined in Gambian law. That makes Gambia’s criminalization of homosexual activity – which already violates international law – even more likely to be used broadly and arbitrarily.
Gambia must change anti homophobic law to conform with International law. Gambians have the right to privacy. Law must be changed NOW! Gambians from west Africa are arrested and placed inhuman prisons and tortured for their sexual preferences. I accept All people as part of my own personal feelings. ano one ever asked to be gay, it is something that you are either born with, or judt knoe it in your head. Jesus never spoke of homosexuality at all. So I will probably be in trouble for taking this stand. but the country must speak out for this is international law which they Gambian law makers or president refuse.
Gambia must change anti homophobic law to conform with International law. Gambians have the right to privacy. Law must be changed NOW! Gambians from west Africa are arrested and placed inhuman prisons and tortured for their sexual preferences. I accept All people as part of my own personal feelings. ano one ever asked to be gay, it is something that you are either born with, or judt knoe it in your head. Jesus never spoke of homosexuality at all. So I will probably be in trouble for taking this stand. but the country must speak out for this is international law which they Gambian law makers or president refuse.