In this “letter” for BBC, Sammy Awami, a freelance journalist based in Tanzania, talks about the “wave of anti-homosexuality sentiments sweeping through” East Africa.
Awami argues, as have others, that this anti-gay sentiment is being whipped up “by politicians and political parties who have not delivered on their promises to their voters.” Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo is quoted as making a similar argument in a tweet: “There is currently no anti-gay hysteria in African countries with high economic growth rates or which are able to manage their debt”.
About the bogus claim of homosexuality being un-African, Awamy writes:
“It is interesting that these politicians ignore the fact that it is actually the harsh anti-homosexuality laws – not homosexuality – that were imposed on us by the colonial government.
Indeed, the original anti-homosexuality law was first introduced across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda by the British colonialists, after successfully using it in India about 150 years ago.”
Read the full article here.
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