(Dakar) Thousands of people demonstrated in Dakar on Sunday to demand a strengthening of the repression of homosexuality in Senegal after the recent rejection by Parliament of a text toughening the laws in this area, noted journalists from the AFP.
Posted at 10:21 a.m.
“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 again and adopt it in [séance] plenary”, declared 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 against 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 (219 to 3300 dollars) “anyone who has committed an immodest or unnatural act with an individual of his sex”.
Eleven deputies 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 (2,165 to 11,006 dollars). ).
In addition to homosexuality, the proposal targeted “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality, bestiality, necrophilia and other similar practices”.
The Bureau of the National Assembly rejected the proposal, citing the fact that the Senegalese Penal Code already “severely” punishes homosexuality.
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.