SENEGAL: MEN JAILED FOR 6 MONTHS ON GAY CHARGES

Despite the country claiming that gay people are not prosecuted, two men have been jailed for homosexuality in Senegal.

AP revealed on Saturday that the men had been reported to police by neighbours in the capital Dakar.

In court on Friday, the men acknowledged that they had sex and were sentenced to six months in prison.

Under article 319 of the penal code, which criminalises “improper or unnatural” acts, they could have been sentenced up to five years in jail.

Last year, Sidiki Kaba, the minister of justice of Senegal, denied that article 319 targeted gays and lesbians.

“Article 319 talks about acts contrary to nature. The fact of being homosexual in Senegal is not a crime, and there has been no prosecution or trial of persons who are homosexual under the Criminal Code,” he stated.

Friday’s conviction contradicts Kaba’s claims and confirms that homosexuality is in fact very much illegal in Senegal.

In November, five women were arrested at a Dakar bar on charges of lesbianism. They were later released due to lack of evidence.

In June, Senegal’s President Macky Sall and President Obama exchanged words over the issue of LGBT rights during the US leader’s visit to the African country.

At a press conference in Dakar, President Sall told Obama: “Senegal, as far as it is concerned, is a very tolerant country which does not discriminate in terms of inalienable rights of the human being.”