January 16, 2015 – Reported by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission – For too long, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has peddled hate and abused with impunity lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in The Gambia. Jammeh scapegoats LGBT people to deflect attention from failed leadership that has lately brought the country to the brink of famine, food shortages and a quick devaluation of its currency.
Already hostile to basic human rights and with a decades-long record of atrocities, Jammeh’s reputation as a tyrant and torturer was well documented, when in October, he quietly added a new repressive law to the books outlawing “aggravated homosexuality,” which carries a penalty of life in prison. In the latest crackdown, 14 people were detained in December and held incommunicado in prisons long known as among the world’s worst. Eleven were released this week. The others will be charged in the coming week. Local lawyers are representing them.
The arrests came as Jammeh delivered yet another rant, this time condemning the “evil empire of homosexuals” and wishing they would go down the “dirty drain and garbage of hell.”…story continues below…
