A report by the international human rights group Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’homme (FIDH) has said that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community’s allies and defenders face grave dangers in the Republic of Cameroon.
In the West African country, a homosexual act can get you six months to five years in prison and people defending members of the gay community are now being targeted as well, according to the report.
Activists of LGBT claim they face danger of arbitrary arrests, having their homes burned, mob violence with explicit complicit of the police service in the country.
2013 winner of the German branch of Amnesty International’s human rights prize, Alice Nkom was quoted by France24 as saying that she has made arrangement for her own security through a private security firm because the state does not care about protecting LGBT and its activists any more.
“I am under constant security. I made arrangements. I have a security contract with a company, because the state doesn’t ensure my safety”, she said.
She said further that she no longer risks walking in the street, but doesn’t plan to leave her country. Alice Nkom is the founder of Association de Defense des Homosexuel-les (Association for the defense of gay men and women) which continue to fight for LGBT rights in the country.
The report stated that intimidation is one of the primary methods used to target activists, who are regularly threatened by anonymous messages via SMS or Facebook.
Michel Togué, a lawyer who has also defended members of the LGBT community said that even his children have been threatened. One message he received said that if he didn’t stop “defending homo ideas” he might find himself “at the bedside of his dying children”. This was sent with an image of his children, photographed walking home from school.
Even LGBT activists who are anonymous have been indentified strangely. One of them, who is seeking to repeal anti-gay laws and defend “poor and vulnerable communities”, was the victim of an entrapment scheme in 2013. After receiving an SMS from a man and setting up a meeting, he was condemned to one year in prison for planning a “tentative homosexual act”.
FIDH said at first, it was primarily activists who were threatened and assaulted. But now, more and more lawyers are being targeted as well. Records show that 2,500 practicing lawyers in Cameroon, only four or five are willing to defend homosexuals. And those who do are often stigmatized and ridiculed by their friends and families.
LGBT persons in Cameroon face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Cameroon.
Same-sex sexual acts are banned by section 347 of the Cameroonian penal code with a penalty of 5 years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 francs.
In May 2005, 11 men were arrested at a nightclub on suspicion of sodomy, and the government threatened to conduct medical examinations to prove their homosexual activity.
A gay Cameroonian man was granted the right to claim asylum in the United Kingdom due to his sexuality in early July 2010. In August 2011, a gay Cameroonian man was also granted temporary immigration bail from the UK Border Agency after Air France refused to carry him to Cameroon for fear of being imprisoned.
Source: www.france24.com/en/20150224-cameroon-lgbt-activists-face-threats-violence/
