Two Zambian Men arrested for engaging in Homosexual Acts

Mati Maravanyika,

Editor (Africa)

 

LUSAKA – Two Zambian men have been re-arrested by police for having consensual homosexual relations “against the order of nature.”

According to human rights group Amnesty International, the two men, James Mwansa and Philip Mubiana, aged 21, were reported to the police by their neighbors and were arrested shortly thereafter.

Following their arrests, they both received anal examinations “without their consent” after which they were forced to admit to engaging in same-sex acts. Before their most recent arrest, the two men were in trouble with the law last month, arrested but released on bail on May 2^nd. According to Amnesty International, their bail requests have been denied and they are being held at a jail in Kapiri Mposhi even though they have pleaded not guilty.  Their trial has been scheduled to commence on May 22^nd.

Homosexuality is illegal in Zambia as it is in most African countries and if convicted, the accused can be fined or sentenced to several years in prison. Homosexuality and homosexual acts are illegal on the basis of the sodomy laws that were introduced during British colonization. It is now reinforced by cultural and biblical beliefs.

Amnesty researcher in Zambia, Simeon Mawanza stated that “anal examinations conducted to ‘prove’ same-sex conduct are scientifically invalid, and if they were conducted without the men’s consent, contravene the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment under international law.” He added that the arrest of Mwansa and Mubiana based merely on their sexual orientation/preference “amounts to discrimination and it is in violation of their rights to freedom of conscience, expression and privacy.”

Last year in Cameroon, a man texted a male friend saying “I’m very much in love with you” and he was sentenced to three years in jail. In South Africa, considered “one of the more progressive nations in the continent” concerning the issue of homosexuality “was the first African country to impose a constitutional ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation.” Hate crimes and sexual harassment against lesbians occurs frequently in South Africa therefore the term “corrective rape” was coined to describe it.

In Saudia Arabia and Iran, where homosexuality is strongly opposed and condemned, homosexuals are sentenced to death.

Image Courtesy: Tobias Jakobs (Wiki Commons) Released under the Public Domain