Ghana cracks down on gays

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Ghana’s Western Region Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo MP has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the country’s west.

Aidooo has tasked Ghana’s Bureau of National Investigations and security forces to round up the country’s gay population and has called on landlords and tenants to inform on people they suspect of being homosexuals.

“All efforts are being made to get rid of these people in the society,” he said.

The move by the Minister follows months of campaigning by the Christian Council of Ghana which last week called on Ghanaians not to vote for any politician who believes in the rights of homosexuals.

Muslims and Christians in the Western Region have been staging protests ever since a local media report claimed there were around 8000 homosexuals and lesbians in the district.

However, a lawyer at Kwame Nkrumah University, Ernest Kofi Abotsie, questioned the legality of the move.

Abotsie said laws outlawing “unnatural canal knowledge” in the Ghanaian criminal code were ambiguous and had not been defined to mean homosexuality, and it was wrong for politicians to be telling police how to carry out their duties.

69 Comments

1. Pingback: Ghana’s Gay Community Under Threat |

2. 

   Tuff Gong

   July 23, 2011 at 12:55 pm

   
   

   KWAME- “My question to the west, must the african countries continue to kowtow to any stupid and inhuman lifestyle of the west and embrace them just because they can give us aid.”

   Short answer: YES. We’re not going to sit back and watch while you persecute a group of people who we love and accept as our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our aunts and uncles, and then pay you to do it.

   You must understand, in western countries, homosexuals are not shadowy figures, but people who we pass in the street, who we work with at our jobs, and who we buy things from in the shops, every day.

   Maybe if your police busied themselves chasing down corrupt politicians instead of harassing consenting adults for what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms, you wouldn’t need our aid in the first place?

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4. 

   Butlerson

   July 23, 2011 at 5:39 pm

   
   

   If this were a truly Christian nation there would be love for all one’s neighbors, even for their enemies. This is a movement based on hate, ignorance & superstition.

   This action IS totally in keeping with what Islam teaches – that gay people should be killed (along with those who leave Islam, raped women, women who marry non-Muslims, among others). It would be interesting to see what the proportion of Muslims to Christians actually is.

   The article doesn’t say but I wonder if this so-called ‘Christian’ group behind this is from the US, like the ones that pushed a similar hate measure in Uganda.

   It does sound just like Nazi Germany, which also killed 10s of 1000s of gays who were classified as ‘subhumans’.
5. 

   robert k k

   July 23, 2011 at 5:56 pm

   
   

   I think most of you have read the story and not really gone into details or made any background checks.I an ghanaian and a Christian and reading through the comments here makes me sad that people will categorise us as uncivilised based on one person’s views.Legally, the Regional minister cannot order the Bureau of national investigations to effect arrests,that is above his mandate also as in some countries in the west and even some states in the usa, homosexuality is not legalised.Having Said that, culturally we as a people frown on certain practices and would oppose any steps to legalise it and rightly so as in democratic principles.The story has been turned around to make it seem like there are no anti gay politicians in Australia, Uk,and the Usa.Ghana Currently is one of the most democratic countries in africa and we run a centralised government system so the regional minister will always have to answer to the president or even the minister for the interior on issues like this.We have a very strong judiciary and any gay person who feels persecuted can seek redress in court.From my Christian Perspective, even though I do not condone homosexuality, ostracising them is not the answer because i believe we all are perpetrators of other sins so it is not in our power to judge.Withdrawing Foreign Aid from Ghana will not adversely affect the country as some of you may wrongly think. The lack of development in the country is not because we lack resources but due to mismanagement of these resources including foreign aid.And to Allay your Fears, We have the Death penalty but no prisoner on death row has been executed in the last 20years and the likelyhood of a genocide of anykind happening is nil.
6. 

   robert k k

   July 23, 2011 at 6:04 pm

   
   

   I think most of you have read the story and not really gone into details or made any background checks.I an ghanaian and a Christian and reading through the comments here makes me sad that people will categorise us as uncivilised based on one person’s views.Legally, the Regional minister cannot order the Bureau of national investigations to effect arrests,that is above his mandate also as in some countries in the west and even some states in the usa, homosexuality is not legalised.Having Said that, culturally we as a people frown on certain practices and would oppose any steps to legalise it and rightly so as in democratic principles.The story has been turned around to make it seem like there are no anti gay politicians in Australia, Uk,and the Usa.Ghana Currently is one of the most democratic countries in africa and we run a centralised government system so the regional minister will always have to answer to the president or even the minister for the interior on issues like this.We have a very strong judiciary and any gay person who feels persecuted can seek redress in court.From my Christian Perspective, even though I do not condone homosexuality, ostracising them is not the answer because i believe we all are perpetrators of other sins so it is not in our power to judge.Withdrawing Foreign Aid from Ghana will not adversely affect the country as some of you may wrongly think. The lack of development in the country is not because we lack resources but due to mismanagement of these resources including foreign aid.And to Allay your Fears, We have the Death penalty but no prisoner on death row has been executed in the last 20years and the likelyhood of a genocide of anykind happening is nil
7. 

   Cambell

   July 23, 2011 at 7:12 pm

   
   

   Sounds like Jim Wallace and the ACL have been giving policy advise

8. Pingback: Ghana MP’s call to arrest gays part of anti-GLBTQ trend in some African nations » New Black Woman

9. 

   Carsten H

   July 24, 2011 at 10:53 am

   
   

   Kwame I don´t think a religious way is the future for Ghana. Maybe if government of Ghana was not infected with this kind of religion, Ghana could develop from a dependent country to be an independendt country with well educated people, without financial help from America and Britain. I personally hope that this countrys attitude about people (some gays, some bisexuals and some transgenders) will be gratuated in a way, that your dogmatic stupid government, will not receive a penny from our countries, before this country show respect for all people. By the way your country export a lot of problems to our country/ drugdealers and prostitutes, do you want them in return? As Jesus said: let the person without sin throw the first stone.
10. 

    Fact Checker

    July 25, 2011 at 2:02 am

    
    

    Note to Wait A Sec about your Biblical quotes:
    These are false renderings of the KJV English and not based on any biblical manuscript evidence whatsoever. Until the 19th century, there was no word AT ALL for a homosexual. The use of “homosexual” in the new bible versions is purely a personal bias on the part of the authors. The problem is that most Christians are under the naive impression that a book that says “Holy Bible” on the cover must be a Holy Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth; most were translated from corrupted and scholarly-denounced manuscripts (such as the Septuagint LXX, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus). http://www.gaychristiansurvivors.com/
11. 

    William H Middleton

    July 25, 2011 at 3:21 am

    
    

    “All efforts are being made to GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE! Really?!?!? Seriously!!! Like How! As the Nazis did to Jews in the Late 30s and early 40s With a “Final Solution?” Shame On You People for thinking it Your God Given Right to Persecute Other People and Think By Doing So, You Remain In God’s Good Graces! You Are SO WRONG! We Are All Humans With Various Ways Of Loving, Not All The Same. If You Think The Way I Love and Relate To My Life Partner, And How I Bond With HIM, Then Don’t YOU Do It! It’s None Of Your Business! You Love And Intimately Interact With Your “Partner” Your Way, And I Will Intimately Interact With Mine OUR Way!

12. Pingback: Homosexuals In Ghana Go To Jail | Meddling Kids

13. 

    KWAME

    July 26, 2011 at 9:57 am

    
    

    WE WILL BURN THE GAYS, DONT TRY GHANA…. WE WILL BURN U ALL
14. 

    Jamie

    July 27, 2011 at 8:19 am

    
    

    Sad things is that we have all learned to accept this in our society with no regrets though to give in to a religious and fascist way of thinking is just pathetic to the extreme. Everyone I truly HATED same sex anything; possibly went out and hurt male/female same sex people though now I have accepted this around me, notice i did not say forced to accept it or deal with it.

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16. Pingback: Ghana Church Establishing Centers to “Cure” Homosexuality « Ghanaian Scoop

17. 

    Eugene Brown

    October 12, 2011 at 11:22 am

    
    

    The fact of the matter is that Gay people have thrived in African Societies for centuries and have done so without the help of Wetern Governments..I speak in relation to Ghana where the subject is embroiled in such hypocrisy…The government Minister who made such serious claims for gay men and women to be rounded up and criminalised does not speak for the Ghanaian government…Number 2, The current British Government must realize that life in the eyes of a typical African will never be synonymous as the Western World…. Family structures in Africa are more intact than what currently exists in Britain and that some things are best left for Africans to deal with..Its very apparant that David Cameron like his predecessor will never learn…Britain and America talks about Freedom..
    Is it the freedom we see on our streets in London that he wants to impose on Africa….? or is he again wants to play politics with the lives of Africans? Yes there are countries that have committed atrocities and they must be dealt with by the international community…I would like to remind Mr Cameron that if he has any conscience he should look at home first…and deal with the day to day abuses of systems that have been designed to protect gay people but are flaunted day in and day out. to date No single gay person have been killed because of their sexuality in Ghana… I’m guessing that the same cannot be said for Britain….Ghana’s family structures are intact…there is hardly any social services intervention for decades…because there is a very fine blue print…and its majority of the population values human life and are God fearing…and no amount of high tech social services policies can deliver that! Mr Cameron can try….but will eat the biggest humble pie ever…! If Mr Cameron wants to help Ghana or indeed Africa…he should save his energy and tackle the crippling interest rates he and his British Government imposes on poorer countries through borrowing knowing that the debt and its related interest rate can never be paid….and in doing so dictate to countries like Ghana….The SLAVE and Master ideology is still as rife…..I rest My Case!

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19. 

    Dee

    May 24, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    
    

    It’s sad here that in the 21st century, there’s still some narrow minded people. Ghana and all of these other countries who makes homosexuality/bisexuality illegal should be cut off from aid from other countries since they can’t seem to treat their own citizens with respect. Since when did falling in love with somebody of the same sex became such a crime? What about the murders, rapist, and pedophiles? They more than likely roam the streets free, while innocent lgbt people are persecuted just for who they are. And these countries call themselves “Christians and/or Islamics”? To me, they all seem like hypocrites and need to learn to respect others-not necessarily saying that they should accept it, but live and let live. And it’s no wonder that the HIV rate is high for these homophobic countries due to their ignorance. It’s strange though, a country like Ghana is so anti-gay but if you go onto a gay website, there would be thousands of Ghanaians on these sites, though to primarily scam people out of money. Why don’t their government do something about that instead of going on this “witch hunt” for lgbt people? At this rate, countries like Ghana will not progress.

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