Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on Friday condemned Western “tyranny” in wanting to “impose” homosexuality and rejected any attempt to stop the application of a new law toughening sentences for same-sex relations.
LGBTQ issues have stirred controversy in Muslim-majority Senegal in recent years and gay rights advocacy is frequently denounced as a tool used by Westerners to impose foreign values.
Late March, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye signed into law legislation doubling the maximum penalty for same-sex relations, amid a crackdown on the country’s gay community.
“There are eight billion human beings in the world, but there is a small nucleus called the West which, because it has resources and controls the media, wants to impose it (homosexuality) on the rest of the world,” Sonko said in an address to lawmakers in the west African country.
The new law punishes “acts against nature”, a term used to signify same-sex relations, by five to 10 years’ imprisonment, compared with one to five years previously.
It also provides for three to seven years in prison for those found guilty of promoting or financing same-sex relationships.
Sonko, before becoming Senegal’s highly influential prime minister in 2024, had promised to make same-sex relations a crime, upping the offence from its previous classification as misdemeanour.
