Malawi Gay Rights Victory: Justice at last for Steven and Tiwonge
President Bingu of Malawi has pardoned the couple, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, who were recently sentenced to 14 years hard labour on charges of homosexuality.
Ban Ki Moon had applauded the lifting of the sentence, which had been met with outrage by the United States, Europe and rights groups, and called on Malawi’s parliament to change the country’s laws.
Peter Tatchell, the British human rights campaigner who has championed Steven and Tiwonge’s case and support them personally, arranging prison visits, food parcels and medicine, said
“Our thanks to President Bingu and Ban Ki Moon for ending this terrible injustice. Steven and Tiwonge should never have been arrested, let alone jailed for five months, convicted and sentenced to 14 years hard labour. They love one another and have harmed no one.
65 British MPs condemn Malawi gay trial
Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga before a hearing in January (Photo: Reuters/Eldson Chagara)
Towards the end of 2009, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga decided to openly consecrate their love for one another and make history, by becoming the first Malawian gay married couple. Two days later, they were arrested and charged with “unnatural practices between males”, they were also forced to go through a humiliating and intrusive medical examination to gather ‘evidence’ for trial.
Earlier this week, sixty-five British MPs have signed a House of Commons Early Day Motion (EDM 564), which condemns Malawi’s arrest and trial of Monjeza, 20 and Chimbalanga, 26. The two men love each other and have harmed no one. But they could be jailed for up to 14 years. According to an interview in the Times Mr Monjeza, who claimed to be beaten in jail and appeared to be disorientated — said: “I love my husband and laws should not prohibit love.”
Senegal sees dramatic escalation in homophobic persecution
International pressure on Uganda as the country attempts to pass an anti-homosexuality bill is important, but other nations remain havens of anti-LGBT oppression. Cary Alan Johnson and Ryan Thoreson call for an end to the criminalisation of same-sex relationships that is fuelling homophobia in Senegal and elsewhere.
BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
Authors: Cary Alan Johnson and Ryan Thoreson
The global outcry against Uganda’s ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ could not be more deafening. Opponents of the legislation have condemned the effort not just to put gays in prison, which is already the law in Uganda, but to further criminalise the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, require that suspected gays and lesbians be turned in to authorities, and to punish some individuals – including those who are HIV positive or those euphemistically called ‘repeat offenders’ – with death.
The governments of Canada, France and Sweden have branded the bill wrongheaded. From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to President Barack Obama himself, the US, a major foreign donor to Uganda, has made its disapproval of the legislation clear. Usually silent religious leaders, from Anglican and Catholic church leadership to Saddleback church’s Rick Warren and other evangelical Christians, have condemned the bill’s promotion of the death penalty, imprisonment for gays and lesbians, and the threat its provisions pose to pastoral confidentiality.
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