Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has
defended a law he recently signed that prescribes life in prison for
gay sex.
Western nations, including the United
States and Britain, have condemned the law which calls for life
imprisonment for people repeatedly convicted of having consensual sex
with a member of the same sex.
“I don't care what they say,”
Jammeh told Press
TV's Henry Bonsu. “Africans have never been homosexual. We
have never seen homosexual frogs. I have cattle... I have never seen
homosexual gay cattle. And homosexuality is detrimental to human
existence. It is unafrican. It is unethical. It is ungodly.”
“Go to the bible and the Koran. We
are Muslims and we believe in the Almighty Allah, what he says.
Whatever Allah says is haram, we will make sure that it is haram to
the letter. I don't care how they feel about me. I didn't introduce
the death penalty here... I found it here. And the British brought
the death penalty to The Gambia.”
“But it's also said,” Bonsu
started, “that it was the colonials who brought in the laws against
homosexuality into Africa and Africans have maintained and kept those
laws, so to be truly African which would be to remove those laws
forbidding homosexuality and to remove the death penalty.”
“Are you attributing that
homosexuality is Africa?” Jammeh asked. “In the slave trade they
sent Africans to go capture people in the bush. So those are the
same type of Africans that we still have that they used against us.
So I wouldn't be surprised, but homosexuality is unafrican. And let
me also make it very clear: Even if the whole accept it, I Yahya
Jammeh will not accept it in The Gambia. Let them go and tell me
whatever that they want to tell me. Do I care? I don't. What I
cared about is how the Almighty Allah sees me. I am Muslim. If I
die none of them can take me to hell or heaven. But it is the
Almighty Allah that can take me wherever he decides. And
homosexuality would never be accepted in this country. Let them call
me any name. Do I care? No I don't.”