Sonko says Senegal will not back down on enforcing harsher penalties for same-sex relations despite growing international criticism.
Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on Friday condemned Western “tyranny” in wanting to “impose” homosexuality, and rejected any attempt to stop the application of a new law toughening sentences for same-sex relations.
LGBTQ issues have stirred controversy in Muslim-majority Senegal in recent years and gay rights advocacy is frequently denounced as a tool used by Westerners to impose foreign values.
Sonko attacks Western criticism
At the end of March, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye signed a law doubling the maximum penalty for same-sex relations.
Dozens of arrests have already been made under the legislation.
“There is a kind of tryanny. There are eight billion human beings in the world, but there is a small nucleus called the West… which, because it has resources and controls the media, wants to impose it (homosexuality) on the rest of the world,” Sonko said in an address to lawmakers in the west African country.
Sonko said that after the law was approved he had heard much criticism of Senegal in foreign countries, particuarly France.
“If they have opted for these practices, it’s their problem, but we don’t have any lessons to take from them, absolutely none,” he said.
Unlike the position of the West, which “wants to impose its diktat”, no Asian, African or Arab country criticises Senegal, the prime minister said.
He also urged the justice system to ensure the law’s “total” application.
New law increases prison sentences
The new law punishes “acts against nature”, a term used to signify same-sex relations, by five to 10 years’ imprisonment, compared with one to five years previously.
It also provides for three to seven years in prison for those found guilty of promoting or financing same-sex relationships.
Sonko rejected any kind of “moratorium” on the law’s enforcement after a call by around 30 personalities of African origin in an editorial published in French daily Liberation this month.
Before becoming Senegal’s prime minister in 2024, Sonko had promised to make same-sex relations a crime, upping the offence from its previous classification as misdemeanour.
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