One of the highest religious leaders of Senegal declared Friday “to encourage” all the legal steps against homosexuality, after the rejection by the Parliament of a text hardening the repression in the matter, in this country very predominantly Moslem.
In addition, nine anti-homosexual demonstrators, including a famous rapper in Senegal, Abdou Karim Guèye, were “arrested and taken” Friday to a police station in Dakar after having “burned a rainbow flag” in front of the National Assembly , in the center of the capital, after the great weekly Muslim prayer, the artist’s lawyer, Me Cheikh Khoureysi Ba, told AFP.
The rainbow flag is that of the LGBT community.
The Office of the National Assembly declared on Wednesday “inadmissible” a bill cracking down on homosexuality.
In a press release, the Caliph General of the Mourides, Serigne Mountakha Mbacké, refrains from mentioning the rejection of this text. But, he writes, “we encourage all legal steps aimed at combating this heinous crime and denounce any attempt to defend it”.
The Caliph General is at the head of one of the most powerful religious brotherhoods that characterize Senegal. The Murids, of Sufi (Sunni) obedience, and the other brotherhoods play a preponderant role, spiritual and temporal if not political, in the life of this Muslim country at nearly 95%. The leaders of these brotherhoods are very much listened to.
In his press release, the Caliph said that “one of the most important purposes of Islam is to preserve offspring and protect society against corruption and depravity of morals”.
Citing the Qur’an and tradition, he speaks of homosexuality as a “disgrace” and a “crime against the Creator and against all mankind.” Tradition calls for “severe punishment,” he said, denouncing “vigorously any action” to promote homosexuality.
Senegalese law punishes from 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 indecent or unnatural act with an individual of his sex”.
Voices demand the toughening of this legislation. Eleven deputies tabled a proposal to this effect in December, raising prison sentences to five to ten years and the fines to 1 million to 5 million CFA francs (1,500 to 7,625 euros).
In addition to homosexuality, the proposal aimed “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality, bestiality, necrophilia and other similar practices”.
The Office of the National Assembly rejected the proposal, citing the fact that the Senegalese penal code already “severely” punishes homosexuality.
The Senegalese government invokes the Senegalese cultural specificities to refuse a decriminalization of homosexuality.
.