HOMOPHOBIA ‘ON INCREASE’

Stiffkitten blog

2 June 2012

SOURCE 

Homophobia in Africa is ”escalating”

“The abuse is escalating. Recent cases of criminalization of same-sex relationships have worsened a situation already characterized by harassment, humiliation, extortion, arbitrary arrests, judicial violence, imprisonment, torture, hate crimes and honour killings on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity all over Africa,” says a new report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).

“Over the past ten years, the focus on equal rights, law reforms, community cohesion, diversity, families and migrations for lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex (LGBTI) Africans has gone from bad to worse.”

The ILGA report gives several recommendations on how to improve the situation for African LGBTI people, including legal and policy reform to “reinforce same-sex relationships,” education programmes to “address underlying prejudices,” and promoting media training to “discourage attitudes of discrimination and stigmatisation.”

These points are particularly pressing in many African countries where homosexuality is illegal and where LGTBI people are attacked or ridiculed in the press and by politicians.

Uganda is a case in point here, due amongst other things to the internationally publicised case of David Kato, a Ugandan LGBTI-rights activist who was brutally beaten to death in 2011 after local newspaper Rolling Stone had called for him and 100 other named and depicted Ugandan gays and lesbians to be executed. “Hang them” was the title of the article.

In Swaziland, a columnist in the country’s only independent national newspaper, the Times of Swaziland, was recently allowed to write hate speech against LGBTI people.

“Homosexuality or trans-sexuality is an abomination … an evil act that must be stopped,” he wrote. “Swaziland frowns on such satanic deeds … I hate homosexuality with every fibre of hair or flesh in my body.” Fortunately there was enough outrage towards the author and the newspaper that printed his remarks from right-minded individuals and organisations to make the editor suspend the columnist.

Homosexuality is illegal in both Uganda and Swaziland, as it is in many other African countries, and carries a penalty of several years’ imprisonment.

Even South Africa has its fair share of homophobic outbursts and incidences, despite the fact that LGBTI people are protected by §9 of the South African constitution that proclaims, “the state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including … sexual orientation;” that same-sex marriages have been legal since 2006; and that “homosexual people in major urban areas are fairly accepted” according to Queerlife South Africa.

President Jacob Zuma called same-sex marriages ”a disgrace to the nation and to God” in 2006 and appointed a homophobic ambassador found guilty of hate speech to Uganda in 2010. “Corrective rapes” and murder of lesbians is on the rise in the townships. And homosexuals are discriminated against employment-wise, even though the 1995 Labour Relations Act and the 1998 Employment Equity Act nominally protect homosexuals against unfair labour discrimination.

So even though being gay in a country like South Africa is preferable to being gay in Swaziland or Uganda, it is apparent that legislation is not enough to ensure equal rights in practice for LGBTI people.

SWAZI KING’S UGANDAN RELATIONS

Swaziland’s King Mswati III is back in his home kingdom after an extensive trip to Egypt for the African Union summit and to Uganda for a state-visit.

Readers of this blog who live in Swaziland will be well aware of these facts because the state-owned media have been giving the king’s journey extensive coverage.

Even the nominally independent newspaper, the Swazi Observer, has been devoting pages per day to the King. The Observer is generally known as ‘the King’s newspaper’ so this is no surprise. The Observer’s chief editor Musa Ndlangamandla travelled with ‘His Majesty’ (in the deferential way the newspaper likes to refer to the King).

As I said in my recently published research on censorship in Swazi newsrooms, it is the job of the chief editor (whoever holds the post, not just the present one) to report the King in a ‘good light’. And the reporting of this trip has been no exception.

I got the impression that there may not have been too much to write about this trip because Ndlangamandla had some difficulty filling the wide-open spaces of the Observer that had been left to him.

That can be the only reason why readers of the Observer (2 July 2008) had to put up with a report about problems the chief editor was having with his underwear (believe me you don’t want to know the details.)

Meanwhile, Swaziland’s only other ‘independent’ newspaper, the Times of Swaziland had to rely on the Internet for its stories.

As is common with newspapers in Swaziland, the Times ‘lifted’ reports that had already appeared on the Internet sites of newspapers outside of the kingdom.

The Times relied on New Vision, a Ugandan newspaper for its coverage.

Uganda is a country with a big human rights problem and the country’s newspapers are not very different from those in Swaziland when it comes to keeping on the right side of those in power.

So in the Times yesterday (10 July 2008) we were treated to New Vision’s report of King Mswati III praising a local ‘kingdom’ within Uganda. The King is reported to have praised the kingdom’s parliament and also praised kingdoms generally.

We should remember at this point that Swaziland is a kingdom (not a country or a state) and its people are subjects (not citizens). King Mswati is reported saying that kingdom’s ‘play an important role in poverty alleviation, job creation, access to health care and social services’.

I’ll leave it to you to decide how highly the Kingdom of Swaziland scores in each of these areas.

The King of Buganda in turn praised the Swazi King ‘for the peace and stability it has established in its kingdom for 200 years’.

The Times also lifted a story from New Vision about Swaziland committing to buy anti-AIDS ARV drugs from Swaziland.

I suppose if the Times cannot afford to send its own reporter to join the King on overseas’ visits (or indeed doesn’t want to) it needs to get its news from an alternative source: hence its reliance on New Vision.

What a pity then that it didn’t also share this report from New Vision.

When King Mswati of Swaziland jetted in on Monday, a state House official asked all female journalists to step aside because they had ‘breached a protocol of dress code’ and would not cover the function of the king’s arrival. They were wearing trousers. But after haggling, they were let in. When the journalists inquired from their Swazi colleagues whether female journalists are not allowed to wear trousers they were told they can wear anything as long as it is decent. The Ugandans concluded that they were being protected from royal attention. Mswati has 16 wives.

What can they mean the women had to be ‘protected from royal attention?’ and what has this to do with having 16 wives?....