Ghana cracks down on gays

Ghana cracks down on gays

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.

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73 responses to “Ghana cracks down on gays”

  1. Whoa guys, let’s get serious. Ghana’s a small country full of problems and their PRIME MINISTER isn’t an idiot of that caliber that he would do such I thing. I BET this is just another hiperreality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality) issue to justify colonization and slavery that is going to be justified as “fighting for human rights and democracy.” I’m NOT saying that there isn’t a possibility that this is factual, but I highly doubt the ignorance of their politics.

  2. The list of things Ghana doesn’t have continues to grow. First it was fresh water, enough food, civility, houses made from wood or concrete, a working sewer system, and now no gays! Congrats Ghana! You’re the best nation in the world!*

    *not including all others

  3. When the rhetoric of such an authority effectively sanctions genocide, one has to question how an individual’s sexuality can be so easily politicized for the sake of ulterior mandates. After all it’s one thing who one man or woman chooses to coalesce with but another thing when a political apparatchik decides to mandate that it knows better than an individual how he or she should expresses their sexual and intimate desires.

    http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2011/07/ghana-mp-warns-homosexuals-of-pending-mob-lynching/

  4. If this country receives any financial aid from the West it should be cut off immediately. If this is how they treat people West should impose sanctions and completely isolate them.

  5. Whatever, Canada and the States did the exact same thing. There was a gay rights movement in 1969, but before that you risked being violated. Cops, politicians, employers, it doesn’t matter they would harass you, and no one would think otherwise. It was the norm back then.

    In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a law that would mandate castration for gay men and mutilation of nose cartilage for gay women.

    • Too bad these countries can not learn from the more progressive countries who have been through and fought these fights, only to come around to equal rights for all. Who should care what consenting adults do with their sexual organs if they both agree, and why is it anyone’s personal business, since we all have different desires and how these are manifested to each other.

  6. Paddy, I hate to break this to you, but they know exactly where they’re putting 8000 people: the ground.

    Fucking awful.

  7. As a Ghanaian, this saddens me. That’s all I have to say. I wish this didn’t happen.

  8. STOP ALL AID NOW…ALL of it! I wanna hear from the President of the USA and all Jewish Organizations on this! This is too Hitleresque…..its disgusting/pathetic and inhuman. I Blame brainwashed religious wackjobs.

  9. Sickening. To be persecuted for sexual orientation is wrong – and contravenes the nation’s obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the country has signed and ratified. Don’t become an international pariah, Ghana! If you want to arrest someone, choose Paul Evans Aidoo, MP for inciting hatred!

  10. I’m a Ghanaian journalist, let me clear a few things.

    As the last paragraph says, Ghana’s constitution does not outlaw homosexuality in its explicit sense, just an ambiguous statement of “unnatural carnal knowledge”.

    The first comment here asked how the govt knows of the 8000 gay people in that region. It’s because those 8000 people registered themselves into a grouping and a newspaper found out.

    Ghana’s religious population (christian and muslim) have a powerful voice. And they are against the homosexuals getting recognition. Their favorite quote is “God loves the sinner including the homosexuals but hates sin and homosexuality”

    What’s the mood like? It will soon get bloody. It’s an extremely touchy issue.

    Hope this clears things up.

  11. Graeme, firstly it’s a fallacy that Gillard is “filling Australia” with refugees from this part of the world, the actual numbers are proportionately tiny plus there has been a moratorium since Rudd’s period on immigration from sub-Saharan Africa (a modern day Whites-only policy)
    There’s plenty of room in our great continent-country and there would be far more room if the vast majority of illegals (British & Irish visa overstayers make up over 80% of illegals in Australia) were deported to make way for people who are fleeing repressive regimes in Africa like this. Your comments paint us Australians as racist, thankfully many of us aren’t.

  12. Not sure of your point anonymous. He has written an article which seems factual to me.
    Graeme, some of the people Julia Gillard is “filling this country up with” are escaping such persecution,
    Australia is a country which has based its development on immigration.

  13. Who do you think you are Andrew Potts? How can you write such an anodyne report as if it is about rounding up stray dogs? You need to look at yourself in the mirror my friend and question your integrity.

    Substitute “Gay” with “Jew” and you might understand what I mean – or how about North European Country and Black people?

  14. This is horrific, isn’t this what Hitler started to do!
    People I urge you to write to Ghana’s government using the link below:

    http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=22&Itemid=161

    You can also write to Amnesty International.

    I do not wish to see these people persecuted based on their sexual preference. This is the 21st Century for God’s sake. For that matter I’m sick of religion being used as a means to carry out these horrific acts against humanity.

    As Ghandi said those that remain silent agree with the perpetrator.

  15. Open season on anyone you don’t like? This is going to be a ~messy~ while in Ghana, isn’t it. More than just being vile from our perspective, surely there’s going to be accusations flying everywhere @_@

  16. Seems to be wide spread in this part of the world. Our wonderful Julia Gillard is filling Australia up with refugees from these areas of Africa.
    GOD HELP US ALL!!!!

  17. Begs the question… where are they going to put 8000 people? I also wonder how they know these people are gay? They must put a lot of time/resources into monitoring all their citizens. If only they used it for good…

    Just makes you see why the people running countries like this are so very loathed by their citizens and the world at large…