Police in Swaziland /
Eswatini are investigating a woman officer who came out as a lesbian at the
kingdom’s LGBTI Pride event.
Chief Police Information
and Communication Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed this to
the Swazi News. ‘Deliberations are going on so I can only discuss
it afterwards,’ Mamba said.
He said they were trying to
determine whether police officers were allowed to attend LGBTI (lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, intersex) Pride events.
The newspaper reported on
Saturday (7 July 2018), Mamba ‘went on to state that they had seen her pictures
and interview in last weekend’s publications and clarified that she was
participating in her own accord’.
Swaziland held its first
LGBTI Pride parade the previous Saturday and many photographs appeared in
Swaziland’s national newspapers.
Homosexual acts among men
are illegal in Swaziland but there is no law restricting women’s activities.
In the run up to the LGBTI
Pride the Swaziland police went on record to state it
did not support the march.
Separately, Mamba, the official spokesperson for the police and a
self-proclaimed prophet, preached
from the pulpit, ‘We say
no to homosexuality, this country will not tolerate the LGBTI community.’
One of the kingdom’s
best-known NGO rights activist groups the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse
(SWAGAA) snubbed
the Pride festival saying it was against Biblical
teaching.
Swaziland is a tiny
landlocked kingdom with a population of about 1.1 million people, mostly living
in rural communities. It is ruled by King Mswati III who is one of the world’s
last absolute monarchs who reportedly described homosexuality as being ‘satanic.’
In the run up to the event,
the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in
effect owned by the King, ran
three articles calling LGBTI
people ‘a
curse’ and ‘evil’ and likening them to child sex molesters and people who had
sex with animals.
The Swazi News reported that the woman police officer had ‘come out’ as
a lesbian and publicly participated in the Pride event.
It reported ‘Despite that she has come out, she requested
that her identity be protected, not because she was afraid but because of her
work, where it still has not been fully accepted.’
It added, ‘Her confidence
during the interview can be said to be that of one who can withstand
stigmatisation as many public service employees are afraid to declare their
standing in society when it comes such issues.
‘The officer, when asked
what advice she had for public servants who are part of the LGBTI community but
are afraid to come out, said they should continue to live their lives and not
be ashamed of who they are as God can be the only judge.’
The News reported her saying, ‘Some people who judge are hypocritical,
because there are things that they do behind closed doors that we do not know.’
See also
KINGDOM’S FIRST LGBTI PRIDE TAKES PLACE
LGBTI PRIDE GETS GLOBAL ATTENTION
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/07/lgbti-pride-gets-global-attention.html
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