Signs of support for Paris Saint-Germain player Idrissa Gana Gueye continue to flow in Senegal where his alleged refusal to join the fight against homophobia is almost unanimous in the name of cultural and religious values.
Homosexuals, they complain of an increase in discrimination in a country also known for its hospitality.
As Idrissa Gueye faces criticism in France, Senegalese police said on Wednesday they were investigating a suspected homophobic gang attack.
Documented by various videos circulating on social networks, it would have occurred Tuesday in Dakar, without it being clear whether it could have been incited by the controversy around Gueye, revered star in Senegal where he is vice-captain of the team. national.
An angry mob of several dozen men surrounded a barefoot young man in broad daylight in a street wearing only his underpants. He is held firmly at the wrists, a trickle of blood on his shoulders, and receives slaps on the back and the head.
“Homosexuality will not be accepted in Senegal,” they shout at him.
Witnesses interviewed by AFP in a district of the capital confirmed that a young man was beaten there and the victim of homophobic insults on Tuesday, before being brought to a police station. We do not know his fate. The police just said an investigation was underway.
In France, Idrissa Gueye is suspected of having forfeited to avoid wearing a flocked jersey in the colors of the LGBT pride rainbow during a match last Saturday, as part of an operation organized by the Professional Football League (LFP) and entitled “Gays or heterosexuals, we all wear the same jersey”.
The footballer had also not played last year during this same operation.
He has not spoken publicly. The French Federation summoned him to explain himself.
He has received a flood of support in Senegal where he is adored, like his teammates who won the African Cup of Nations (CAN) in February, for the first time in the country’s history. The CAN trophy must also tour the country from this week.
– “Anchored in its values” –
Following other personalities, including the Head of State Macky Sall in person, the President of the Senegalese Federation, Augustin Senghor, expressed his support on Tuesday evening.
Idrissa Gana Gueye is “in his right”, he declared to the press. “He remained anchored in his values, in his principles, in his faith which make the + senegality +, which make the + Africanity + of an entire continent”.
In this 95% Muslim and very practicing country, homosexuality is widely considered deviant. Senegalese law punishes there with imprisonment of one to five years acts known as “against nature with an individual of his sex”.
Homosexuality is also willingly decried as an instrument used by Westerners to impose values totally foreign to Senegalese culture and traditions.
Homosexuals, forced to maintain the utmost discretion, complain of an increase in attacks and homophobic remarks in recent years. A few videos showing alleged homophobic attacks have circulated on social networks.
Homosexuals indicate that some of them have left the country to escape discrimination, to seek asylum in Europe or even to take refuge in countries in the region where the issue is less epidermal.
One of the main national political figures and main opponent of President Macky Sall, Ousmane Sonko, launched a virulent charge on Tuesday evening against Westerners and France over the Gueye affair.
“The + toubabs + (whites, in Wolof) believe that we are garbage and that only they have values,” he told the press.
“Today, they have to impose homosexuality on us (…) They alone have values. Until when? What he (Gueye) has done is an act of courage. We everyone, regardless of religion, must support it,” he said.
President 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.