With an early-morning raid on a private apartment in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, the police interrupted the celebration of a wedding between two men and arrested dozens of men between 18 and 30 years. According to most sources, 25 people ended up behind bars, but according to other media, 28 people were arrested. Police officers seized a good deal of alleged evidence to accuse the young men of “unnatural acts“: wedding rings, condoms, lubricants, HIV tests, makeup, lipsticks, perfumes, and even wipes and soaps. “The arsenal for an orgy” screams the title of one of the country’s main news websites, while others celebrate the arrest of “fags.”
With a total lack of respect for privacy, the police checked the cell phones and tablets of the people present at the party, uncovering gay pornographic images. They are also willing to bring this element before the judges, who could sentence all these men to five years in prison. Another solution, as for the ten men arrested in Touba, s to collect the money to pay a kind of ransom bribe to the police. All this happens in a state that many European governments – in order to not grant protection to persecuted people – describe as a “safe country“ even for LGBTQIA people.
Someone celebrates
Meanwhile, some Senegalese Islamic associations immediately went wild to celebrate the news. Andd Samm Jikko Yi, an organization that fights for “moral values” and which welcomes “the homophobic behavior of the brave Senegalese people,” took the opportunity to launch an appeal to “reinforce vigilance to preserve our country from these anti-values transformed into law in the name of international law” and to “double the commitment to avoid the collateral damages produced by this abjection called LGBTQI+.”
However, the attention was mainly drawn by Jamra, a powerful association that has become the protagonist of the most outlandish accusations against sexual minorities: LGBTQIA people are guilty (according to the organization) of trying to “homosexualize” Senegalese people through rainbow t-shirts or children’s cartoons. Now Jamra has launched a manhunt to find “the deviant midwife,” the presumed wedding organizer who also is a psychologist that is likely to be on the run. They base the accusations against him on the discovery of his identity card in the apartment where the wedding was taking place, but it’s impossible to know if it’s a Jamra hoax to draw attention or perhaps even a trap against a thorny person.
Sweet depravity
Meanwhile, Jamra launched a new conspiracy theory: this time the LGBTQIA community would try to “homosexualize” Senegalese children by tempting their tastebuds. At the heart of the scandal, according to the association, there are “candy-gadgets sold near schools and in shops in popular neighborhoods with underage characters who simulate unnatural acts” (in reality, a boy and a girl giving each other a little kiss on the lips). The only evidence is a 30-second video that shows the game with no contextualization, but this was enough for the ministry of commerce to intervene to prohibit the sale of “sweets that promote child depravity and debauchery.”
But there is nothing more trendy than the war on the corpses of gay (and presumed gay) people in the holy city of Touba: after the ban on burying Mbaye Wade (a man originally from the place and emigrated to Belgium, where he had a partner), local authorities refused to bury the body of Pierre Daneza, an alleged gay French man who lived in the city, and Souleymane F., a Senegalese cosmetics seller. In the latter case, a group of young fanatics showed some images to show to the family of the dead man that he was gay. Because the only thing really “against nature” is the narrow-mindedness of those who don’t respect even dead people.
Pier Cesare Notaro
©2020 Il Grande Colibrì
images: Il Grande Colibrì
