SENEGAL: Five Lesbians Arrested

Five "suspected lesbians" have been arrested in Senegal's continuing crackdown on its LGBT citizens.

The five women were detained early Monday morning during a birthday party at a restaurant in Dakar’s Yoff district that has been described in the Senegalese press as a meeting point for gay men and lesbians, said Ndeye Kebe, president of the activist group Women’s Smile. The oldest of the suspects, 31-year-old Sene Dieng, is an assistant director at Women’s Smile, the only group in Senegal to advocate for lesbians’ rights. The five women were expected to appear in court Tuesday, though Kebe said they had been unable to afford a lawyer. Senegal’s penal code calls for prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to $3,000 for committing “an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex.” Since 2008, the Muslim-majority country has been gripped by what Human Rights Watch describes as an anti-gay “moral panic,” with arrests and mob justice on the rise.

The Associated Press adds that while a Senegalese newspaper claims the women were "caught committing homosexual acts," witnesses report that the five women were merely sitting at a table in a crowded restaurant when police arrived.

RELATED: Last week the European Union ruled that LGBT refugees from Senegal and other anti-gay nations are eligible for asylum in EU member states. The ruling stipulates that it will be up to each EU nation to determine if imprisonment is "applied in practice" in the applicant's home country. The "mere existence" of a ban on homosexuality is not grounds in itself for eligibility.

European Union Grants Asylum Eligibility For LGBT Refugees From Anti-Gay Nations

Excellent news from the EU. The BBC has the story:

The EU's top court has ruled that homosexuals from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal who fear imprisonment in their home country have grounds for asylum in EU member states. The Netherlands had asked the court for advice about three gay citizens of those countries seeking asylum. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) says asylum can be granted in cases where people are actually jailed for homosexuality in their home country. ECJ rulings apply to all EU members. Homosexual acts are illegal in most African countries, including key Western allies such as Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana. In June a report by Amnesty International said homophobic attacks had reached dangerous levels in sub-Saharan Africa and must stop.

IMPORTANT: The ruling stipulates that it will be up to each EU nation to determine if imprisonment is "applied in practice" in the applicant's home country. The "mere existence" of a ban on homosexuality is not grounds in itself for eligibility. (Tipped by JMG reader Matthew)

SENEGAL: Gay Man's Body Ripped From Grave, Abused And Videotaped

In a story about the widening oppression of LGBT people across Africa, ABC News reports that in 2009, a gay man's body was exhumed from its grave and desecrated by a mob who videotaped the scene and sold the clip at public markets.

Madieye Diallo's body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents. The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals. "I locked myself inside my room and didn't come out for days," says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo's who is ill with HIV. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?" A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries.

As regular readers of this blog are well aware, the current wave of anti-gay hatred in Africa has been fueled by American evangelicals and GOP politicians.

You Can't Be Gay And Buried In Senegal

Even after death, you cannot escape the gay witchhunt in Senegal.

Senegalese villagers dug up the body of a man at the weekend, saying he was gay and that they did not want him buried in a Muslim cemetery, police said Monday. Police in the village of Thies, in the west of the country, were called out after villagers exhumed the body. The man, born in Dakar in 1975, had died in hospital on Saturday of natural causes, said a police officer in the village. "But after his burial the same day in a Muslim cemetery, four people dug him up. The deceased was considered homosexual," the officer said. "We intervened and the people dispersed. The parents (of the deceased) put the body in the tomb," the officer added.But overnight a group of people once again dug up the body and dumped it in front of the parents' home, the officer added. "The father took the body for burial elsewhere."

Homosexual sex in Senegal is a crime punishable by five years in prison. In recent weeks an anti-gay campaign has seen Muslim leaders there calling for the deaths of all gay people.

Senegal: Eight Years In Prison For HIV/AIDS Activists

Senegal, which recently hosted a major international AIDS conference, has sentenced nine gay men to eight years in prison for "unnatural and indecent acts." Most of the men are HIV/AIDS activists.

The jailing in Senegal of nine gay men for eight years over "indecent conduct and unnatural acts" has been condemned by an international gay rights group. Homosexual acts are illegal in Senegal but the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) told the BBC it was "shocked by the ruling". The judge added three years to a five-year sentence, saying the men were also members of a criminal group. Most of them belonged to an association set up to fight HIV and Aids.

"This is the first time that the Senegalese legal system has handed down such a harsh sentence against gays," said Issa Diop, one of the men's four defence lawyers. Mr Diop said he would be appealing against the sentences. The IGLHRC's Cary Alan Johnson said he was "deeply disturbed" by the case. "There have been pretty consistent human rights violations… in Senegal," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme from Cape Town in South Africa. "But the extremity of this sentence [and] the rapidness of the trial all really shocks us in a country which has been moving so positively towards rule of law and a progressive human rights regime."

For years, gay people have been fleeing Senegal for safer neighboring countries.