African Civilization Under Homosexuals Attack
SOUTHERN AFRICA:
Gay People Vilified By Politicians - Report
By Anthony Stoppard
JOHANNESBURG, May 15 (IPS) - Attacks by Southern African leaders on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people threatens human rights in the region, says a new report by Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC).
”Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have been vilified by presidents and political leaders, which has led to a culture of intolerance. These attacks are just the first step in creating a climate in which all rights are at risk,” says the executive director of IGLHRC, Paula Ettelbrick.
Her comments were made in a statement released at the launch of the report, ”More Than a Name: State-Sponsored Homophobia and its Consequences in Southern Africa”, in Cape Town on May 14.
The 298-page report documents the harassment and violence against sexual minorities in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. ”When Southern African political leaders like President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe make speeches saying that gays and lesbians are 'worse than dogs and pigs', it should be no surprise that violent attacks follow,” said a co-author of the report, Scott Long of Human Rights Watch.
Namibian President, Sam Nujoma, is reported to have called homosexuals in Namibia, ”idiots” and branded homosexuality a ”foreign and corrupt ideology”. He has threatened to outlaw homosexuality, arrest gay Namibians and deport foreign homosexuals.
The report documents verbal attacks, police harassment, official crackdowns, and community violence aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Victims have been assaulted, imprisoned, expelled from schools, fired from jobs, denied access to medical care, evicted from their homes, and driven into exile or, in some cases, to suicide.
The report also looks at the state of sexual rights in South Africa, which has prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in its constitution. Based on interviews with numerous individuals and activists, the report concludes that the equality guaranteed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people is fragile, and even endangered by the silence and foot-dragging of political leaders in South Africa.
A commissioner for the South African Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) Sheila Meintjes, commemorating South African Freedom Day, on Apr. 27, said: ”In spite of the constitution, the education authorities, the South African Police Service and even shelters for abused women have all victimised gays and lesbians.”
Meintjes said the CGE would continue to campaign for an end to all hate crimes. Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC called on the governments of all five countries to refrain from promoting intolerance and from inciting discrimination and abuse. Other recommendations include: repealing laws, including ”sodomy laws”, which violate human rights.
Testimonies from the report include that of ”Fatima”, a 16-year-old Zimbabwean gay man, who tells how police abused him and a friend in Nov. 2000. ”I had put a bandanna in my hair, which had a kind of a British flag pattern in it. A man called me over. Then he started saying to me, ”You homosexuals - are you British? You want to make this country like your country, a gay country. Our president was beaten up in London (by a gay activist), and here you are, demonstrating.”
”Suddenly there were four people all over us, all plainclothes police. They were Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the presidential security police. They handcuffed me and threw me in a car. They called my friend over, and they said to us, ”You gay people, you should be killed,” he says.
”They beat my friend. They were slapping his face till he was bleeding from the ears. Other people were around, and were just watching, but I heard some of them saying, ”They are beating the homosexuals,” says Fatima.
”Then they stopped another car - the driver was also a policeman - and put him in it. They said to the driver, ”Take this homosexual and drop him somewhere far from town.” I thought that would be it, I thought no one would ever see us again.
”Then there was just me left. And they kept me in the car and drove around with me. They would stop from place to place, in a field or a parking lot, and beat me, on the chest and the face. That went on until night, with me handcuffed. Finally the officers took me to a police station and they handed me over there,” says Fatima.
”They threw me into a cell and took off the handcuffs. There were other prisoners there, six of them. They said, ”Here's a homosexual. You can do whatever you want with him. You can have sex with him if you want.”
”For some reason the prisoners left me alone. I was pretty bruised. I slept there one night. In the morning, the policemen said I would have to pay a fine, Z$100 (4 U.S. dollars), because I was doing prostitution.”
”Fatima's” experience is common among gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals across the region, according to the report. (END/2003)
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