Burundi’s president says gays should be stoned
Burundi’s president said gay people in his country should be stoned to death, amid a growing crackdown on LGBTQ people in the East African country, adding to anti-gay sentiments sweeping the region and the wider African continent .
While President Evariste Ndayishimiye’s comments do not have the force of law, they are an escalation of provocative statements against LGBTQ people elsewhere by African government officials.
Mr Ndayishimiye said homosexuals should not be accepted in Burundi, a conservative nation where consensual same-sex intimacy is already punishable by up to two years in prison.
“I think if we find these kinds of people in Burundi, it would be better to take them to a stadium and stone them,” Ndayishimiye said Friday at an event in the eastern province of Cankuzo, where he answered questions from journalists. and members of the public. “That’s what they deserve.”
In his remarks, the president also railed against Western countries that, he suggested, had made their aid conditional on accepting gay rights.
“Let them have it,” he said of their help.
On Sunday, a gay human rights activist in Burundi, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, expressed concern that the president’s comments would pave the way for the extrajudicial killing of homosexuals and “aggravate an already unsafe environment.”
Burundi, a small, densely populated, landlocked nation, is one of the poorest countries in the world and receives aid and loans from the European Union, the United States and the International Monetary Fund.
Mr Ndayishimiye’s comments were the latest expression of anti-gay sentiments to surface in East Africa, where LGBTQ people have faced virulent homophobia and increasing repression.
Over the past year, Uganda has adopted what activists called one of the strictest anti-gay laws in the world, which prescribed the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” a term defined as homosexual acts committed by anyone infected with HIV or involving children, the disabled, or anyone under duress. The law, which is currently being challenged in the country’s Constitutional Court, was widely condemned by governments and rights groups around the world.
After President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed the law, the United States announced visa restrictions on some Ugandan officials, and the World Bank withdrew all future financial support to Uganda. In the months leading up to and following the law’s passage, gay and transgender Ugandans said they were harassed, beaten and evicted from their homes, and some forced to flee their country entirely.
In Kenya, lawmakers, along with the president, have criticized the country’s Supreme Court over the past year after it allowed the registration of an LGBTQ association. One lawmaker also introduced legislation that would impose punitive measures, including giving members of the public the power to arrest anyone they suspect is homosexual.
Officials in Tanzania, Zambia and Ghana have also railed against gays in the past year.
In Tanzania, authorities said they would prosecute anyone caught sharing pro-LGBTQ content online. Police in Zambia arrested activists they accused of promoting homosexuality. And in Ghana, a bill in parliament would criminalize identifying as queer and propose prison sentences or fines for those who helped fund or protect the rights of sexual and gender minorities.
Anti-gay sentiments have recently intensified in parts of the next continent Pope Francis’ edict two weeks ago allowed priests to bless same-sex couples.
Burundi prohibited consensual gay intimacy in 2009 in a law signed by the president at the time, Pierre Nkurunzizaan autocratic leader who mocked gays for years.
Mr Ndayishimiye, a retired general, came to power in 2020 after an election marred by the arrest and torture of opposition activists, rights groups said.
Even though Mr. Ndayishimiye is credited with lifting some restrictions on the news media and civil society organizations, observers say his government has failed to improve the country’s endemic corruption and poor human rights record.