ANTI-GAY GROUP ISSUES GAY HIT LIST

An anti-gay group in Liberia has distributed pamphlets listing people who are gay or support LGBT rights and has threatened to “get to them one by one.”

Associated Press reported that a group called Movement Against Gay’s in Liberia, or MOGAL, printed the fliers which were spread around Liberia’s capital Monrovia last weekend.

The flier reads: “Having conducted a comprehensive investigation, we are convinced that the below listed individuals are gays or supporters of the club who don’t mean well for our country. Therefore, we have agreed to go after them using all means in life.”

It goes on to say: “Let these individuals be aware that we are coming after them soon. We urge them to also begin saying their Lord’s prayers.”

A man who claimed to be a member of MOGAL told Associated Press that “We will get to them one by one. They want to spoil our country.”

He threatened to subject the people listed in the flier to “dangerous punishments” including “flogging and death.”

The issue of LGBT rights has becoming an increasingly contentious one in Liberia.

Lawmakers recently proposed legislation to further criminalise gays and lesbians and to ban same-sex marriage.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has stated that she will not sign any laws dealing with homosexuality; to either legalise it or to increase penalties against it.

“We like ourselves just the way we are,” she said recently.

While homosexuality is not specifically barred in Liberia, voluntary “sodomy” is illegal and carries penalties of up to three years in prison.