International human rights groups are reporting increases in hate crimes against gays and lesbians across Africa. All over the continent, they say, homosexuals are being harassed and ridiculed, assaulted and arrested, tortured, jailed and murdered ? and on an unprecedented scale.
?We have seen an upsurge of violence, of discrimination.? You?ve got guys in Cameroon being arrested; you?ve got guys in Nigeria being killed for being gay. It?s happening all over Africa,? says Denis Nzioka, one of East Africa?s most prominent gay rights activists. ?We?re under siege,? he adds in his Nairobi office.
The action against African homosexuals, NGOs say, is happening at a time when the continent?s gays and lesbians are asserting themselves like never before, becoming more vocal and more visible in their demands for what they consider to be basic human rights.
?The hatred directed at gay people creates fear. And this creates the ?fight or flight? syndrome. Some gay people flee and go underground. Others choose to fight fire with fire. That?s why you see a corresponding upsurge in openly gay activities all over Africa,? explains Nzioka, who works for Africa?s Gay Activists Alliance.
After decades of being underground, some groups in Africa are publishing gay-related material, holding illegal marriages, marching and protesting ? daring the authorities to take action against them?risking, and sometimes receiving, the wrath of the continent?s ?homophobes.?
?It?s almost as if African gays are saying to the haters, ?Here we are; we are proud to be gay; catch us if you can.? It?s a very dangerous situation. It?s a war,? says Nzioka.
In most of Africa?s 53 countries, same sex acts are illegal and punishable with long prison sentences. In some nations, like Mauritania, Somalia and Sudan, gays and lesbians can be put to death if convicted of ?sodomy? or ?indecent? sexual activities.
Many continental authorities ? including political and religious leaders ? say homosexuality goes against God and African culture.
The spotlight was put on same-sex relations in Africa last year when Ugandan MP David Bahati tried to get his Anti-Homosexuality Bill passed into law. The draft legislation calls for the execution of individuals who have gay sex with disabled people or under-18s, and the imposition of fines or imprisonment on anyone found to be ?promoting? homosexuality.
Human rights advocates blame a subsequent wave of attacks on homosexuals in Uganda ? including the murders of gay activists Paskikali Kashusbe and David Kato ? on Bahati?s bill and ?religious sponsored homophobia.? Bahati denies the charge.
In South Africa, discrimination against homosexuals is illegal, and it?s the only country in Africa that allows gay marriage. But even here, gangs carry out so-called ?corrective? rapes on lesbians and sometimes murder them. Local activists say at least 30 have been killed in recent years.
Other incidents in Africa that have focused attention on homosexuality on the continent in recent times include the rape and beating to death of Sierra Leonean lesbian activist Fannyann Eddy; the 14-year jail sentences ? subsequently revoked ? imposed on a gay couple who ?married? in Malawi; the imprisonment for ?sodomy? of 11 Cameroonian men; the jailing for two years of four Ghanaian men for ?unnatural acts? and Burundi?s president signing into law a bill criminalizing homosexuality.
A particularly worrying phenomenon in Africa, says Natasha Vally of the South Africa-based Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, is ?police homophobia.? Police are increasingly using arrest itself as a means of punishment. So we?ve seen in lots of these cases it doesn?t appear that the police have the intention to prosecute at all.?
Across Africa, Vally says, police are arresting homosexuals on ?trumped up? and repeated charges ? such as public drunkenness, keeping them in cells ?for as long as the specific legal system allows them to, and then releasing them without charge, simply to intimidate them and inconvenience them as much as possible.?
Vally agrees that Africa deserves its reputation as a particularly homophobic part of the world.? ?But only to a point,? she adds. ?We have to be very careful of falling into this trap of perpetuating age-old western stereotypes of Africans being backward and somehow genetically prone to corruption and violence. Homophobia exists around the world...including in some of the most developed nations on earth. It is not peculiar to Africa,? she emphasizes.