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First gay rights conference

By on December 7, 2011

A conference on HIV/AIDS and men who have sex with men has been successfully held in Ethiopia as a satellite event of the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) despite outroar from religious groups and homosexuality remaining a serious offence in the North African nation.

The event, “Claim, Scale-up and Sustain”, was organised by African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR) and was to be held at Addis Ababa’s Jupiter Hotel but was forced to move to the UN Conference Centre after being widely reported in the Ethiopian press.

Leaders from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, Islam and Protestant churches were to hold a press conference condemning the conference on November 29 but were apparently dissuaded from doing so after meeting with Health Minister Tewodros Adhanom.

Conference organisers expected around 200 people from 25 countries to attend, with keynpte speakers including UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe and US Global AIDS coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby.

AMSHeR is a coalition of 15 organisations from Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and campaigns for MSM rights and their inclusion in national HIV strategies.

About Andrew M Potts

2 Comments

  1. Bob

    December 8, 2011 at 2:15 am


    The only reason why the conference was allowed to take place in Addis Ababa is because the country is ruled by an authoritarian government. Religious leaders were threatened by the government to call off their press conference.

    Otherwise, the overwhelming majority (97% of the population according to a recent study) in Ethiopia is against homosexuality.

    So don’t make a mountain out of a mole, homosexuality is and will be strongly condemned in Ethiopia for the forseeable future.

  2. Ethiopian

    December 11, 2011 at 11:24 pm


    The only reason the aid-addict regime in Ethiopia decided to host the Gay conference in Addis Ababa is because western donor nations have threatened to stop aid to African countries that don’t legalize gay marriage. The conference was not about “gay rights” but begging gone wrong. Do you honestly believe that the terrorist regime that is carrying out massive scale genocide in Ethiopia cares about the rights of a handful closeted homosexuals in Ethiopia ?

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