ZIM GAY RIGHTS SHOCK
Human rights in Zimbabwe have been dealt a severe blow with both Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe reportedly slamming gays and lesbians.
While Mugabe has a long history of anti-gay sentiment, the country’s gay community had hoped that Tsvangirai would support the inclusion of LGBT protection in the country’s new constitution that is currently being negotiated.
However, Tsvangirai made it clear this week that he supports the president’s position, reported the state-owned Herald newspaper. Speaking after Mugabe at a Women’s Day event, he said: “The President has spoken on the issue of gay rights, men who breathe to other men’s ears.
“Never, I don’t accept that culture. Why do you look for other men when women make up 52 percent of the population? Men are few.”
Earlier, Mugabe – who previously described homosexuality as an “abomination” and gays as being “lower than pigs and dogs” – confirmed his opposition to the idea of enshrining LGBT equality in the constitution, saying: “That issue is not debatable, it’s not up for discussion.
“It is just madness, insanity. The ancestors will turn in their graves should we allow this to happen.”
Speaking to the BBC, Chesterfield Samba, director of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (Galz), said that the comments, as reported, were “very worrying”. The organisation said in April last year that it is making a submission to the body that is reviewing the constitution.
Zimbabwe is being ruled by a coalition government, which includes Tsvangirai’s MDC and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. In 2008, the spokesperson for the MDC, Nelson Chamisa, was quoted as suggesting that a MDC run government would be friendlier to gays and lesbians.
“Our vision is to build a Zimbabwe that has sufficient space and comfort for all,” he said at the time.
Homosexuality is illegal under the country’s Sodomy and Unnatural Offences laws.
I am Zimbabwean…. I grew up in Zimbabwe, I was born there, went to school there, had some of the best memories of my life in Bulawayo but I am so ashamed now as a lesbian woman to be associated in any way with that country. The world has always know what Mugabe was like when it came to this issue, how sad that Tsvangirai is taking his side on this. Will there ever be a government that finally takes control of Zimbabwe as all the world has seen is the moral decay of a country due to Mugabe and he says we are lower than pigs and dogs .. what kind of animal is he to treat other human beings in general the way he does! To ruin a countries economy, to not care for the starving people, his own culture, in his country. And we should be ashamed?
SILENCE. Why is the S African govt always so silent on this issue in Zimbabwe,Uganda Senegal etc.
We have a governemnet that pays lips service to it’s contstituion and its rights.
S Africa should be in he forefront of advocating these rights in Africa showing that the sky does not fall in by givng people their due rights.
Our government too should hang its head in shame and stop leaving it to Europe to advocate rights.
It is time we had a truly progressive transfomational govenment
and not one mired in the ignorance of the past
worried. We thought that the prime minister is going to bring change to the lgbt community in zim but trouble, my heart is broken, so whats going to happen to the organistion did they mention to close it down, well guys we have no option but only to listen to the government, another question is Did the high court gave us the right or they have denied it?
Poor ancestors!!!. Doesn’t your heart just bleed for the ancestors in their graves???