#Senegal : Thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in Dakar to demand a strengthening of the repression of homosexuality in Senegal following the recent rejection by Parliament of a text toughening the laws in this area, noted AFP journalists.
“No to homosexuality”, chanted the demonstrators on the Place de la Nation, in the popular district of Colobane, near downtown Dakar.
“We call on the President of the National Assembly to bring the bill back into the procedure, so that the deputies can examine it once more and adopt it in the plenary session,” said Imam Aliou Ndao, famous in Senegal for his religious sermons.
Several banners and placards hostile to homosexuality were held up by the demonstrators, including many young people from other regions of the country. The demonstration was organized at the call of the collective “And Samm Jikko” (Together for the safeguard of values, in Wolof), composed of Muslim associations.
Deputies supporting the proposed law toughening the repression once morest homosexuality, rejected by Parliament in January, politicians and members of civil society took part in the demonstration, supervised without incident by the police.
Senegalese law punishes with one to five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 to 1,500,000 CFA francs (152 to 2,286 euros) “anyone who has committed an immodest or unnatural act with an individual of his sex”.
Eleven deputies had tabled a bill in December, from the “And Samm Jikko” collective, to increase prison sentences to five to ten years and fines to 1 million to 5 million CFA francs (1,500 to 7,625 euros) .
In addition to homosexuality, the proposal targeted “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality, zoophilia, necrophilia and other similar practices”.
The Bureau of the National Assembly had rejected the proposal, citing the fact that the Senegalese penal code already punishes homosexuality “severely”.
President Macky Sall, whose country is often cited as an example of the rule of law in Africa, has always invoked Senegalese cultural specificities to refuse the decriminalization of homosexuality, including in front of foreign leaders.
