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By Tim Fitzsimons
Paul Makonda, governor of the largest city of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, has promised this week to begin mass arrests of homosexuals in our city, starting Monday.
"I have received information that there are so many homosexuals in our city and that these gay people are advertising their services on the Internet," Makonda said in a video posted Monday on YouTube.
"Therefore, I announce this to all the citizens of Dar es Salaam: if you know gay … let me know," he said in the clip, which was translated in Swahili by CNN. Makonda then distributed a phone number so citizens could report homosexuals.
An LGBTQ activist, called by phone in Dar es Salaam, told NBC News about the need to keep anonymous to protect his safety, Makonda said at a press conference Wednesday in which he had announced have received more than 18,000 messages since the publication of the YouTube video on Monday. Tanzanians reporting 200 homosexuals and alleged sex workers in Dar Es Salaam.
Makonda also warned international organizations and other countries not to intervene, saying Tanzania had its own "standards".
"He was proud of himself," said LGBTQ activist Makonda. "It shows that people hate" homosexuals.
Many homosexuals in the city have not slept since Monday, said the activist, adding that the fear of militancy was great.
"We know our community," he said. "Once the community starts something like that … they always act on their own."
Makonda is forming a 17-member committee, which will begin next week, to carry out its anti-gay crackdown. According to the activist, the committee will include police officers, psychologists, telecommunications regulators and film regulators. He added that the committee would target suspected homosexuals via social media and other forms of online networking.
The Refugee Coalition of East Africa, an organization of the LGBTQ community registered in neighboring Kenya, called the committee an "anti-LGBTQI monitoring cell" and sent a message to sexual and gender minorities in Tanzania: "We understand your distress and we have experienced your Fear.If you choose to flee to Kenya, know that we are here for you and we strongly encourage you to seek the help of any of our member organizations. "
Homosexuality is punishable in Tanzania from a 30-year prison sentence in perpetuity, one of the toughest sentences in the world for same-sex intimacy, according to Human Rights Watch.
The LGBTQ activist said that the rise of Makonda began shortly after his election in 2016. Makonda reportedly gathered sex workers and homosexuals and conducted "forced anal exams," a failed Victorian practice where the doctors were trying to determine a person's homosexuality. The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have stated that this practice can amount to torture.
"For now, it's very difficult. everyone is scared, "said the activist. "As I speak to you, most LGBT organizations have been closed." The activist told a party organized in 2016 by a friend, during which the police raided and arrested 20 people. The police then subjected them to forced anal examinations, which, according to Human Rights Watch, is the first documented case of using this practice in Tanzania.
The Citizen, a Tanzanian newspaper, said at a press conference on Wednesday that Makonda called the crackdown an attempt to regulate sex workers, which he accused of having announced their services on social networks . He warned the locals they had until Monday to "make sure they removed the pornographic images from their phones, because I would not like to see a public figure arrested because of the pictures included in his phone" .
The activist said Makonda called the anti-gay campaign "for Tanzania, because these gay issues are against our standards, against God, against both beliefs, Islam and Christianity."
According to Neela Ghoshal, an LGBTQ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, Tanzania has gained a reputation for homophobia, and Makonda is known to be one of the country's most virulent homophobic leaders.
"He is known for launching in 2016 a two-year crackdown on LGBTQ people in Tanzania," said Ghoshal. "There were spikes and slowdowns in this crackdown, but it was basically really bad."
Ghoshal said that unlike the neighbors of northern Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, there are few public and open LGBTQ people in Tanzania who will tell their truth on television and in the media. Even in Uganda, whose president, Yoweri Museveni, signed in 2014 a law increasing the penalties for homosexuality, there are public figures who react to homophobia in the media.
"It's almost a chicken or egg environment," Ghoshal said, "it's so hostile that people do not go out, so they do not have a basic understanding of the problem."
Tanzanians, she added, "simply absorb the hate speech of religious leaders and politicians" because "there is no counter narrative".
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