In Cameroon, homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine. Over 30 people have been arrested in Cameroon over the past two years on charges of homosexuality. The number may sound small for a country of 16 million people, but the arrests have created tremendous fear among the Central African nation's gays.
Logo of Alternatives Cameroun, an organisation for gays, lesbians and bisexuals which has also helped to obtain the release of gays like Lorenzo
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One of the men who recently served time for being gay is 22-year-old Lorenzo. In September of last year, two policemen arrested him at the beauty salon where he worked and told him he was being charged with embezzlement. He recounts:
"They took me to the police station, and it was there that I discovered that I hadn't been arrested for embezzlement but for statutory rape and homosexuality.
I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to do. And then they threw me and five other guys who were also gay in prison. We weren't tried and I was never sentenced. We were just put in prison as if we were wild animals."
Prison life
Lorenzo and the other five men spent a total of seven months in jail. They were all in the same cell and were rarely allowed out. Everyone in the prison, both the guards and the inmates, knew they were gay.
Lorenzo, a gay man from Cameroon, requested that we not show his face to preserve his anonymity.
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"Some of the prisoners called us ugly women and faggots all the time. They'd say you shouldn't be alive. They'd hit us and throw water at us. We were tortured. They tried to rape us. We couldn't leave our cell to get fresh air because we were afraid the big boys would threaten and hurt us. Some of the guards would make fun of us too. They thought we deserved to go to hell. We really couldn't leave our cell. It was like being in a prison within a prison."
A free man?
When Lorenzo was released, he had no money and nowhere to go. He moved back in with his mother and brothers and sisters. They only discovered that he was gay when he was jailed.
"My relationship with my family now is difficult. They watch me closely. They don't accept it when my friends come to visit me at home. My mother says they're all gay, even though some of them aren't. She thinks I'm possessed. Every day she calls me a homosexual. I feel rejected. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm really at my wits end. I have to start my life again from zero. I have nothing and I have no one to help me."
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Alice Nkom is a prominent Cameroonian lawyer who has represented a number of men imprisoned for being gay. She says Cameroonian law requires that you be caught in the act, but her clients were imprisoned for just, quote, "looking gay."
"If you wear an earring, if you are too handsome, too nice, too cute, very elegant, or wear very trendy clothes, just that could land you in prison on charges of homosexuality. Normally what happens is this: someone will accuse a man of being gay because he owes him some money and he doesn't want to pay. So the person goes to the police and they're only too happy to pick up an alleged homosexual.
The police tell the man if he confesses he'll be released. But it's actually a trap because they'll use that confession to throw him in prison. An accusation is all it takes. I even had a case where nine people were arrested in different places at different times and they were all judged together and convicted of homosexuality, even though they didn't even know each other."
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Tags:
Cameroon,
gay,
homosexuality,
prison,
rape,
torture
Charlels,
09-10-2008
- USA
God, please save me from your idiot followers. We should remind all the bigots and haters that God is said to be loving, understanding and forgiving....where's the love, understanding and forgiveness in the hate that eminates from people who hate and despise so much. You know that only makes your heart harder and more vile. What makes the world such a beautiful place is that we are all so different and all like different things. To say that God only created man and woman to reproduce is quite perverted don't you think? Especially since God made me....a gay man with a good and loving and understanding heart for others. My Cameroonian brothers and sisters who happen to be gay, my thoughts, and yes, my prayers are with you. Stay strong!
loris,
03-10-2008
- Canada
How incredible, there are even some who appproves of this situation. As for the bible thumper,well the bible is just another story, an horror story. Such a backward country, I am not surprised, I smell religion somewhere in the background, because that is the real evil.
dave smith,
28-09-2008
- UK
It's always sad to hear when normal guys are denied rights that we have in the west. It amazes me that there aren't any roaming gay lynch mobs that go around Africa hanging straight men. Maybe that tells us something about the nature of the African gay communities.
Olivier Meli,
27-09-2008
- USA
The government of Cameroon is doing a fine job and I hope they will enforce it to make harder for gays to even walk around the streets.
Pyrrhos,
26-09-2008
- USA
To say that I am appalled is an understatement. This kind of injustice and behavioral bigotry shows a corrupt society of martinets who care more for authoritarian rules than freedom of conscience. You have invited an abundance shame on yourselves and you shall reap the whirlwind.
emperor,
26-09-2008
- canada
We do not need lawyers like you, who defend evil, what do you understand by the word GAY, where does it come from? Have you ever read of gay in the bible? That is a bad creature of human and should be distroy.
