Senegal: 11 men convicted of ‘unnatural acts’, 11 others awaiting trial
Deepening crackdown on LGBT people in Senegal comes amid calls for stiffer penalties
The year 2025 wrapped up under very dark clouds for Senegal‘s LGBT+ community, as at the end of December 2025, 11 people were convicted of committing “unnatural acts” and 11 people are still awaiting trial, unless sentences had been handed down without being made public.
Five gay men imprisoned in Thiès
On December 21, five suspected homosexuals were the subject of a police raid on an apartment in the Escale neighborhood of Thiès, Senegal, following a tip-off from neighbors.
At the last hearing of 2025 at the Thiès court, four of the five defendants admitted to being homosexual in the face of evidence presented by the public prosecutor: intimate photos and messages found in the phone messages of each of the accused.
According to Senenews, only the owner of the premises contested the prosecutor’s version of events, pointing out that he was not present when the police arrived on the scene.
Despite his denials, the public prosecutor requested a one-year prison sentence with immediate committal for the five defendants.
In Senegal, homosexuality is punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison and fines ranging from €150 to €2,200.
These convictions come at a time when arrests targeting gay men continue unabated, while media coverage of this case has once again been accompanied by the disclosure of the HIV status of one of the defendants by the news outlet Seneweb.
A deepening crackdown
Earlier in December, a total of 18 men from the Diourbel region who were investigated by the police, initially for a simple theft, before the sexual orientation of the complainant’s entourage was scrutinized. The Senegalese press has reported extensively on the case of 15 men initially arrested over the weekend of November 29-30, 2025, but 3 additional people have been accused of receiving stolen goods.
Finally, the court handed down its verdict on December 18, and six men were sentenced to two years in prison for criminal conspiracy, indecent acts, and dissemination of images contrary to public decency, while four others are still awaiting trial, according to Senenews.
Finally, during the night of December 8 to 9, seven suspected homosexuals were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention in the Rufisque region, following a complaint from neighbors similar to the one in Thiès described above. For the time being, no information has been released regarding the legal proceedings in this latest case.
In total for the month of December, according to the local press, 30 men were taken into custody on suspicion of committing “unnatural acts,” 27 of whom were placed in pretrial detention on suspicion.
Religious voices demand stiffer penalties for homosexuality
While voices in Senegal clamor impatiently for an increase in penalties for “unnatural” acts in Senegal, local authorities continue to fill the country’s detention centers with people arrested on these charges. At present, people convicted of homosexual activity can be imprisoned for one to five years, but homophobic religious leaders have argued for years that the penalty should be increased to a range of ten to fifteen years in prison.
Serigne Kosso Mbacké, the eldest son of the General Khalife of the Mourides, the country’s highest spiritual authority, recently renewed his demand that the head of state, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, comply with an anti-homosexuality agenda.
Diomaye’s political party, the Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’Ethique, et la Fraternité (PASTEF), took power in March 2024 with support from anti-LGBTQ partisans.
