Kenya: Teacher arrested for gay text messages

A 20-year-old Kenyan teacher has been arrested for professing his desire to another man via text messages.

Local media reports that the man from Muranga County, who we have chosen not to identify, allegedly sent the messages to a journalist after they briefly met at a media roadshow.

The journalist explained that he handed out his number to locals and later started receiving the texts from the other man.

“Please, let us be lovers and let me show how sweet it is just like a woman. Why don’t you give it a try,” read one of the messages.

The journalist said he rejected the man’s advances and when he discovered that he was a teacher he contacted the police. Together they decided to lure the man to a meeting where he could be apprehended.

“When I reached at our agreed meeting point, I called him and a man came toward me wearing a huge smile and he got into my car and started a conversation. That’s when the police officers who were on a motorbike came and surrounded him,” said the journalist.

In addition to being arrested, the young teacher – who apparently “confessed” to sending the text messages and to having had sex with at least one other man – has now been outed to the community and his family. He is also likely to lose his job
.
“…What is shocking is a teacher trying to solicit sex from a fellow man which means he is practising gayism,” commented Muranga County police chief Naomi Ichami.

The man will be charged with “misusing a communication” device, among other unspecified charges.

If he is charged and found guilty of homosexuality he faces between five to 14 years in prison. Last year, a proposal to extend the penalty to life in prison and even stoning to death was rejected by the country’s parliament.