On Monday, Tanzania launches mass arrest of gays. The architect behind the witch hunt will avoid the wrath of God.



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The governor of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, expects international critics when he launches a national gay hunt on Monday. He can live with that.

"I prefer the wrath of other countries than God's wrath on us," Governor Paul Makonda told the Financial Times.

According to the BBC, a newly created surveillance group should now seize social media in search of people with same-sex relationships. These must be stopped.

Makonda announced this announcement last Monday. The next day, he claimed to have received more than 5000 tricks with a total of 100 names, according to The Guardian.

Encourages rape gays

– All homosexuals now live in fear. Even parents of gay children live in great fear, says Geofrey Mashala, a gay rights activist at the Guardian.

Another activist with whom the Guardian spoke said that one of his friends had been arrested this week. Now he is afraid of the way the friend is treated.

"They stop you and tell other men that" here you can only have anal sex because that's what it does. "

The activist, who wants to remain anonymous, was jailed for six days last year. He was not raped, but claims that he has not received food or water in two days.

President promised a less corrupt society

Tale Hungnes, social manager at Amnesty International Norway, is not surprised by the governor's new initiative.

"Tanzania has had authoritarian development for a long time," she says.

When John Pombe Magufuli took office in 2015 as the country's president, the company promised a more moral society. He used to have a lot of popular support that he wanted to eliminate from corruption.

However, a number of laws and regulations that he has presented have proven to be ineffective in the fight against corruption. Hungnes lists:

  • Young girls are sent back from school if they become pregnant.
  • Less freedom of speech and expression.
  • The country has become less willing to accept refugees from other countries of East Africa.

Norway has granted NOK 374 million to Tanzania in 2017. The governor said he expects reactions from the rest of the world.

Amnesty now calls on all countries to protest that people are being prosecuted for their sexual orientation.

"I hope that Tanzania will be held accountable for this on an international scale," Hungnes told Amnesty International.

Closed HIV clinics

Homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania. The law is set back from the time when the country was a British colony. Sexual activities between men have a maximum sentence of 30 years.

"This is a very scary time for the gay community in Dar es Salaam," said Fatma Karume, president of the Law Society of Tanganyika, Financial Times.

In 2017, the Minister of Health, Ummy Mwalimu, closed 40 HIV and AIDS treatment centers, saying they called for homosexuality, according to CNN.

The same year, Mwalimu threatened to publish a list of gay names, according to the BBC

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