‘West wants to impose homosexuality on the rest of the world’: Senegal PM makes shocking claim

Senegal’s authorities has defended its more durable anti-LGBTQ laws amid rising criticism from worldwide rights teams and activists, with Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko accusing Western international locations of making an attempt to “impose” international social values on the nation.Addressing lawmakers on Friday, Sonko condemned what he described as Western strain on Senegal over homosexuality. “There’s a type of tyranny. There are maybe eight billion human beings in the world. Eighty p.c or extra don’t need (homosexuality),” he informed parliament.“No Arab nation will criticise us, nor will any African nation, however there’s a nucleus referred to as the West… which wants to impose it (homosexuality) on the rest of the world,” Sonko stated. “As a result of they’ve the means (and) management the media, (they) need to impose their diktat. The sovereign Senegalese individuals don’t want these practices right here in Senegal.”The prime minister stated Senegal had confronted criticism overseas, significantly from France, since the legislation was accepted. “If they’ve opted for these practices, it is their drawback, however we haven’t any classes to take from them, completely none,” he added.The remarks got here weeks after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye enacted a controversial new legislation that considerably will increase penalties for same-sex relations in the Muslim-majority West African nation. The laws, overwhelmingly accepted by parliament in March, has already led to dozens of arrests and triggered fierce debate each inside Senegal and overseas.The revised legislation will increase jail sentences for what it describes as “acts in opposition to nature” — a time period used to refer to same-sex relations — from the earlier one-to-five-year time period to five-to-10 years in jail. It additionally introduces sentences of three to seven years for anybody discovered responsible of selling or financing same-sex relationships.The legislation has prompted concern internationally. UN rights chief Volker Turk described the laws as “deeply worrying” and stated it “flies in the face of the sacrosanct human rights”. A collective of round 30 African-origin personalities, writing in French newspaper Liberation earlier this month, warned of a rising “local weather of worry, hatred and violence” in Senegal since the legislation was handed.