Good&Bad Times
on Tales Of The Gambia (The Gambia), 24/Apr/2012 22:08, 34 days ago
Morning y’all! Just thought I’d post a quick update on the Amadou case for any interested people. According to Foroyaa newspaper (part of the very small‘opposition’ press) the 20 people involved were taken to court last Thursday andcharged with the offence of“ Attempt to commit un-natural Offences”, contrary to section 145 of the Criminal Code 2009.The charge is that, whilst at a private pool party at a fitness centre, the 20 people‘conducted themselves in an indecent manner’. This appears to involve some or all of the people present being dressed in female clothes and exhibiting‘female style moves, dances and behaviours’. Thepolice were tipped off that‘alleged homosexuals’ were gathering and they sent someone in, in plain clothes, to take photos. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty to an‘un-natural and indecent act and conspiracy to commit felony’. The case has been adjourned to 8th May.So it appears that whilst the media has universally tagged the people involved as gay, although I’m not sure anybody was actually caught in flagrantein any‘gay act’, the court case itself appears to be about whether they were committing an‘unnatural offence’ by dressing up as women. The good news is that all the defendents were set bail (albeit extremely high at 100,000 dalassi or about£2,000 each) and a friend here with journalist contacts says that the bail was paid by some white people, probably Americans, who were following the case closely.The bad news is that the court case has produced a lot of negative press reaction here on the subject of gays and lesbians. The president (and bear in mind that this is supposed to be a secular country) used the opening of the National Assembly last week to bash gays on religious grounds, saying that there is“no room for gays and lesbians in The Gambia”:http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/no-room-for-gays-lesbians-in-gambia-president-jammehThe main government supporting newspaper, The Observer, weighed in with a typically thoughtful and sensitive editorial in which, amongst other nonsense, it stated…’Our culture in diversity opens the doors for all and sundry, but gays and lesbians and others whose actions, thoughts and conscience are by itself not progressive and are opposed to the Divine Will cannot be entertained’. Read it and weep…http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/gays-and-lesbians