Ugandan president condemned after passing anti-gay law

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. (Pic: AFP)
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. (Pic: AFP)

Rights campaigners and health professionals have condemned Uganda’s president after he said he would approve controversial anti-homosexuality laws based on the advice of “medical experts”.

President Yoweri Museveni told members of his governing party he would sign the Bill – prescribing life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality” – that was passed by Parliament late last year, dashing activists’ hopes he might veto it.

Ofwono Opondo, a government spokesperson, tweeted on Friday that “this comes after 14 medical experts presented a report that homosexuality is not genetic but a social behaviour”.

The MPs, attending a party conference chaired by Museveni, “welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants”, Opondo added.

When Twitter users from around the world then criticised the announcement, Opondo responded: “Hey guys supporting homosexuals take it easy Uganda is a sovereign country #you challange [sic] the law in the courts.”

Under existing colonial-era law in Uganda, anyone found guilty of “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” can already face sentences up to life imprisonment. But the new Bill represents a dramatic broadening of penalties. It bans the promotion of homosexuality, makes it a crime punishable by prison not to report gay people to the authorities and enables life sentences to be imposed for various same-sex acts, including touching in public.

When the Bill was abruptly passed by MPs just before Christmas, Museveni came under pressure to ratify it both within his own party and from Christian clerics who see it as necessary to deter western homosexuals from “recruiting” Ugandan children.

‘Scientifically correct’ position on homosexuality
The president, who has been in power for 28 years, said he wanted his governing National Resistance Movement (NRM) to reach what he called a “scientifically correct” position on homosexuality. A medical report was prepared by more than a dozen scientists from Uganda’s health ministry, officials said. They told Museveni that there is no gene for homosexuality and it is “not a disease but merely an abnormal behaviour which may be learned through experiences in life”. Dr Richard Tushemereirwe, presidential adviser on science, said: “Homosexuality has serious public health consequences and should therefore not be tolerated”.

Anite Evelyn, spokesperson for the NRM conference, said: “[Museveni] declared that he would sign the Bill since the question of whether one can be born a homosexual or not had been answered. The president emphasised that promoters, exhibitionists and those who practise homosexuality for mercenary reasons will not be tolerated and will therefore be dealt with harshly.”

The Bill is popular in Uganda, one of 37 countries in Africa where homosexuality is illegal. Ugandan gay activists have accused some of their country’s political and religious leaders of being influenced by American evangelicals.

Frank Mugisha, who heads Sexual Minorities Uganda, said: “President Museveni knows that this Bill is unconstitutional and that we shall challenge it after he signs it, although I still think he will not sign this particular Bill the way it is. But his political remarks about signing will only increase violence and hatred towards LGBT persons in Uganda.”

The findings by Museveni’s medical experts were disputed in an open letter by more than 50 of the world’s top public health scientists and researchers. “Homosexuality is not a pathology, an abnormality, a mental disorder or an illness: It is a variant of sexual behaviour found in people around the world,” they wrote. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are normal.”

They warned that the laws could undermine the fight against HIV by driving these groups away from public health services because of “fear of arrest, intimidation, violence and discrimination”.

Robyn Lieberman of the watchdog group Human Rights First said: “There should be no doubt that Museveni’s latest words on the subject have been influenced by the reaction to similar legislation in Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere.”

David Smith for the Guardian

Senegal tenants celebrate mandated rent cuts

A new law mandating across-the-board rent reductions in Senegal is a double-blessing for real estate agent Abdul Aziz Sylla. Along with paying 14% less each month for his family’s three-bedroom Dakar apartment, the 36-year-old has been busy brokering deals on behalf of clients flush with newfound purchasing power – and cashing in on a flurry of commissions.

“Everyone is happy about this,” Sylla said this week while standing outside his subdivided villa in Dakar’s Liberte 6 neighborhood, where he also markets property. “Apartments that were just a little bit too expensive, people can suddenly afford them.”

Two years after successfully running on a campaign to lower living costs, President Macky Sall has received wide praise for the law from residents frustrated with the city’s pricey housing stock.

Critics of the rent reduction, however, note that it can distort the market, potentially discouraging the construction of new property or the leasing of existing housing. There are several new housing units currently being constructed, indicating that builders have not yet been discouraged by the reduction, which has been debated for years.

Enforcement will be tricky, and could determine whether the measure becomes a model for other regional governments, said Robert Tashima, Africa regional editor for Oxford Business Group.

“It goes without saying that the key to this legislation is enforcement, which has long been an Achilles’ heel for other rent control and tenancy rights ordinances elsewhere in Africa,” Tashima said.

Landlords will be able to increase rents once current leaseholders leave. Also a black market could emerge where sub-letters pay higher rents.

(Pic: Flickr / hownowdesign)
(Pic: Flickr / hownowdesign)

While rents have climbed throughout West Africa over the past 20 years, Dakar’s increase has been especially dramatic as Senegal cemented its reputation as the most stable country in an unstable region, attracting organisations seeking to move their regional staff from bases in politically turbulent Côte d’Ivoire.

High-end buyers from countries like Nigeria have also increasingly seen Dakar, located on a peninsula that is Africa’s westernmost point, as “a reliable market” for second homes, Tashima said.

Today, rental housing in Dakar’s downtown Plateau district can be double that found in the central business district of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, and often rivals prices seen in large European cities, he said.

Benefits for low-income renters
The situation got so bad that in 2010 Senegal’s National Assembly launched an investigation. The new law, enacted last month, is scaled to benefit low-income renters most: Those paying less than 150 000 West African francs (roughly $310) in rent each month receive reductions of 29%. For apartments with rents between 150 000 and 500 000 francs, the reduction is 14%, and for units priced at more than 500 000 francs the reduction is 4%.

Just over half of Dakar’s roughly 1-million residents are renters, according to Senegal’s national statistics agency. The law does not apply to business property.

Dakar resident Cherif Gassama said the move is politically shrewd, as living costs are a top concern for Senegalese. After getting married last June, the 32-year-old spent six months scouring the city for a new apartment, finally hitting on a fourth-floor walk-up priced three times higher than the unit he leased when he moved to Dakar a decade ago.

Under the new law, his monthly rent decreased from around $300 to about $255, freeing up money he expects to spend on gasoline and staple foods like rice.

“To be frank, this is the first thing that Macky Sall has done to help us,” said Gassama, who described himself as a long-time Sall supporter.

His wife, Rokhaya Diagne, agreed. “When he was first elected two years ago, he was not so focused on fixing things,” she said of Sall. “He was more focused on corruption cases from the past. Now that he’s actually trying to fix things people are changing their minds about him, for the better.”

But like other Dakar residents, she urged Sall to consider similar measures to lower food and energy costs. “He can’t just do this. He needs to do more. This is just a first step for him,” she said.

Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the rent law will benefit everyone that it’s supposed to. Landlords who refuse to comply face up to six months in prison and fines of up to $3 100, but Tashima with Oxford Business Group said the government needs to ensure there are “sufficient resources to oversee the rental market and adjudicate disputes.”

Some landlords have openly said they will defy the law, among them Diarra Sarr, who manages property in the HLM neighborhood.

“I can’t apply this measure. The state doesn’t know all the work we’ve done to construct our houses,” he said. “The government cannot impose these lower rents on us. If they want to lower rent, they need to construct social housing for the population.” – Sapa-AP

Dreaming of an African tennis champion

While football is wildly popular in Africa, tennis is an almost invisible sport. However, this could be changing if new developments in two small West African countries, Togo and Benin, are anything to go by.

About ten years ago, several young Africans successfully gained good classifications from ATP, the governing body of men’s professional tennis circuits. Currently, however, there is not one black African among the 500 best tennis players in the world, as tennis enthusiast Boniface Papa Nouveau explains. The Ivorian is an initiator and promoter of two new tennis tournaments in West Africa and aims to develop his favourite sport across the continent.

An early passion
Papa Nouveau works as a delegate for the international transport company Hesnault in Togo and Benin, where he currently lives. Having grown up in France, he discovered his passion for tennis early in his life. At the age of ten, when the French-Cameroonian tennis player Yannik Noah won the Roland Garros tournament, he got his first tennis racket. Since then Papa Nouveau never got away from the sport. Due to a severe arm injury in his youth, he had to give up his dream of becoming a professional player and taught tennis for many years instead. Today he still is an enthusiastic tennis player and hopes that one day an African could become the next world tennis champion.

Boniface Papa Nouveau (centre) with two participants. (Pic: Tanja Schreiner)
Boniface Papa Nouveau (centre) with two participants. (Pic: Tanja Schreiner)

International players coming to West Africa
After organising his first successful tennis tournament in West Africa in 2012, Papa Nouveau decided to organise two more in a row in the following year. The first, called Open du Togo, was held from 9th to 14th of December 2013 in Togo’s capital Lomé. Fifty-four players from 12 different countries participated. The second, Open de Cotonou, ran from 16th to the 21st of December 2013 in Cotonou, Benin. With 78 young players coming from 13 different countries, the level at the tournament in Benin was already higher than the previous year. Among the participants were international tennis players such as the French Alexandre Renard, the Colombian Juan Gomez and the Franco-Beninese Alexis Klegou. The latter is the unbeaten winner of all three tournaments since 2012. Wanting to motivate numerous young players to participate in the tournaments, prize money was even handed out to players who only won one single match. The winner’s prize money from the competition in Togo was 700 000 CFA Francs (around USD$1500) and 1 000 000 CFA Francs (around USD$2100) in Benin. As Papa Nouveau explains, he was able to realise the tournaments thanks to the support of sponsors and corporates, but it is a challenge to find funding in general.

A sport for the rich?
There are questions whether tennis – not being the cheapest of sports – has the potential to ever be really successful in developing regions like West Africa.  “If you want to buy equipment in Africa, sometimes a city doesn’t even have a sports shop that sells rackets. If they do, it’s three times the price in Europe,” Frank Couraud, International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) development projects administrator, told CNN. Even though West Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world, Papa Nouveau does not think that tennis is a sport reserved for the rich. Take Clément N’Goran, one of Côte d’Ivoire’s greatest tennis champions. He grew up in a family of 13 in a poor neighbourhood in Abidjan. As his parents could not afford tennis rackets for their son, he learned how to play with wooden paddles that he made himself. At the height of his career he was the 150th ranked player in the world.

Also, many young Ivorians that succeeded in having a good classification were born into poor families. When they played well, the International Tennis Federation supported them. “After the age of 18 it should be up to the state to back them up. But as [the state] does not do so, most of them in the end become tennis coaches”, Papa Nouveau says.

Football wins over tennis
One reason why it is so hard to implement tennis is because football still is the most popular sport in Africa. There is almost no visibility of tennis in the media, Papa Nouveau explains. ITF’s Frank Couraud told CNN: “If you look at our budget ($ 4.3 million each year) it’s what FIFA gives to maybe one or two nations. There’s a huge discrepancy.”

There are a lot of young talented tennis players in sub-Saharan Africa but many of them do not get the possibility to further develop their skills on an international level. One of the reasons for this is that there are not enough tennis matches in Africa, Papa Nouveau says. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example,  there used to be professional tennis tournaments a decade ago which gave players the chance to win ATP points. Today, national tournament don’t even exist. When young African players finally get the chance to compete professionally, they are not able to give their best because they are not used to playing in a match, Papa Nouveau says. He’s had many requests to organise tennis competitions in countries as Niger, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.

According to CNN, Africa has not produced a grand slam singles finalist since South African Kevin Curren lost against Boris Becker at the 1985 Wimbledon Championships. Looking at the current ATP single rankings, there is only one African among the best 100 male players in the world – South African Kevin Anderson on rank 21. You can say as much for the best 100 female players, with Chanelle Scheepers from South Africa being the only African to be ranked 79th. This shows that tennis does not have the same reputation in all African countries. The situation in North Africa is much better – in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt there are a lot of tournaments, clubs and many young players with good classifications.

South Africa's Kevin Anderson celebrates his victory against France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin during their men's singles match on day five of the 2014 Australian Open. (Pic: AFP)
South Africa’s Kevin Anderson celebrates his victory against France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin during their men’s singles match on day five of the 2014 Australian Open. (Pic: AFP)

There are a small number of professional tennis tournaments where players can earn ATP ranking points in Africa. In 2013,  Morocco was the only African country to host the ATP Wold Tour – the global professional tennis competition organised by the Association of Tennis Professionals. However other African countries have already hosted the Pro Circuit by the International Tennis Federation, which is an entry level of professional tennis tournaments. Last year, three North African countries (Egypt, Morocco, Senegal) and four sub-Saharan countries (Burundi, Gabon, Nigeria, Rwanda) hosted one of the ITF Pro Circuit’s tournaments.

A future for African tennis
What is necessary for tennis to become more popular in sub-Saharan Africa? According to Papa Nouveau, three things: a big tennis tournament in every African country; tennis federations and governments need to do more to develop the sport; and more tennis clubs in order to initiate tournaments.

Papa Nouveau wants to continue promoting tennis in this region. “It would be great if we could add a competition in the women’s and doubles categories. Moreover I would love to have more young people coming from all over the world.”

He plans to organise three professional international tennis tournaments in West Africa this year – one in  Côte d’Ivoire, one in Benin and one in Togo.

Tanja Schreiner studied journalism and communication in Germany and France. She has worked in several African countries and currently works as a journalist in Germany. Connect with her on Twitter.

 

 

African asylum seekers in Sicily dream of soccer glory

Like many young men in Italy, the soccer players who put on their cleats for an afternoon match in this small Sicilian town dream of international stardom on the field. But for this group, having made it this far is already an achievement.

Each member of the 25-man amateur squad ASD Mineo is African. They risked their lives to cross the sea from Libya in overcrowded boats last year, a journey that killed hundreds of others in shipwrecks, in the hope of finding political asylum.

Their team – the first of its kind in Italy – was created and funded by the managers of the Mineo centre for asylum seekers, one of Europe’s largest such shelters.

ASD Mineo, as the team is called, is registered in the lowest category of Italy’s official football pyramid, which groups 600 divisions and in which, in theory, any team can rise to the top of the league, or Serie A. The team is on track to advance to the next division in its first season.

“We can make it all the way to Serie A,” 19-year-old Musa from Gambia said after defeating another – all-white – local team 4-0 on a recent Sunday. Like his teammates, Musa declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals against family members back home as he seeks political asylum.

Members of the ASD Mineo soccer team at a training session at the immigration centre in Mineo. (Pic: Reuters)
Members of the ASD Mineo soccer team at a training session at the immigration centre in Mineo. (Pic: Reuters)

In this country of soccer fanatics, ASD Mineo has become a test of racial integration. Though many Sicilians criticise local, national and European authorities for failing to provide enough resources to cope with the influx of immigrants, ASD Mineo has not suffered public resentment.

That’s not always the case at the national level, where racism has been a constant problem in football. Though top-flight teams include black and Muslim players, stadiums often echo with monkey chants. One of Italy’s best footballers, Mario Balotelli, a Sicilian-born son of Ghanaian immigrants who plays forward for AC Milan and Italy’s national team, has sometimes been on the receiving end.

Some argue that the problem is made worse by immigration rules which make it difficult for those whose families come from abroad to be accepted as Italians. Balotelli, for example, was not able to gain citizenship until he was 18.

Italy’s first black government minister, Cecile Kyenge, has tried to introduce a law allowing anyone born on Italian soil to become a citizen. She herself has been a target of racists – likened to an orangutan and pelted with bananas in public.

“Immigration is a terrible battleground for politicians,” says Maurizio Ambrosini, sociologist at the University of Milan. “But soccer can be a very effective tool in the fight against racism.”

Gateway to Europe
Sicily, an island that on a map looks like a ball about to be kicked by the Italian “boot”, has been used as a stepping stone to the European mainland for millennia by, among others, Phoenicians, Greeks and Arabs.

Today it is a gateway for migrants and asylum seekers from as far away as India, Pakistan and the Syrian civil war. Most migrants come from Northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Italy has struggled to provide basic services to the 40 000 new arrivals last year amid its worst recession since World War Two.

The asylum centre in Lampedusa, Sicily was badly overcrowded last year. A video showing migrants standing naked in the cold while being sprayed for scabies stirred outrage and prompted authorities to transfer them out in December.

Many of the migrants ended up in the Mineo asylum centre, which sits in an isolated valley southwest of the smouldering, snow-capped Mount Etna volcano. Some 4 000 migrants from 40 nations occupy about 400 two-floor villas that once housed U.S. Navy personnel who worked at the nearby Sigonella NATO air base.

There has been occasional trouble: in October, residents of the shelter blocked the two-lane highway that runs next to the centre, threw rocks at police and destroyed cars to call for faster asylum and temporary permit procedures.

Many of the shelter’s residents had been waiting up to two years for documents needed to leave the camp and find work. Several of ASD Mineo’s soccer players have been waiting 10 months, though Italian guidelines say it should take between 45 days and six months to get through the asylum-request process.

‘Balotelli’ and ‘America’
Nineteen-year-old Mohammad from Togo – a defensive player on the team – was orphaned at age 12. Both his parents died of infection after what he described as a black magic ritual in which he and his parents were cut with machetes. He survived with deep crisscrossing scars on his thighs.

“In my village some people called me Balotelli, and then when I arrived in Italy they started calling me Balotelli,” says Mohammad, who sports a similar Mohawk haircut to the AC Milan star. The teenager says he left his village and, after crossing the Sahara desert, was stopped by police and imprisoned in Libya for not having legal travel documents. He managed to wrangle an exit from jail and get on a boat to Lampedusa.

The idea of forming a soccer team was hatched by the shelter’s director Sebastiano Maccarrone after he watched residents’ pick-up games. He asked a former professional player and employee of the shelter to form a team of the best players.

“Putting one team on the field was hard because there were so many good players to choose from,” saidGiuseppe Manzella, one of the two coaches. Those who made it got new soccer shoes and blue-and-white jerseys for games, and a red sweat suit.

“There are many people in the camp, and we are the lucky ones playing,” said Abu Anifa, a 19-year-old Ghanaian winger. “We are living better here than we did in Africa.”

Before stepping on the field one recent Sunday, six players removed their cleats and knelt for early afternoon Muslim prayers beside a ceramic statue of St. Agrippa, patron saint of the village. A handful of fans performed the same ritual on the sidelines. As the match started they shouted “Go America!”

“America” is the nickname of 19-year-old Ghanaian Abdullahi, top scorer in the league with 18 goals in 14 games. He chose the nickname because “I love America and want to go there”.

He did not disappoint, scoring two goals. ASD Mineo’s coaches say he is good enough to become a pro, and scouts from Catania’s Serie A team have showed an interest in him.

After the game, the African and Italian players shook hands. Some embraced, and they posed for pictures, winners and losers both smiling, arms around each others’ shoulders.

Steve Scherer for Reuters

Surf’s up in Sierra Leone

There have been inspirational reports about Sierra Leone locals trying to revive their country’s tourism industry which has been marred by years of a terrible civil war. Part of these efforts are being channelled into building both a culture and industry around surfing, a sport originally developed by the native Polynesians in Hawaii, as the western coast of Sierra Leone is home to a number of beaches that make for some pretty good surf locations.

Whilst not on the level of more established surf industries and primary surf locations, there are at least four beaches in Sierra Leone that one can visit with a  surfboard in tow: River No.2 beach, Aberdeen beach, Bureh beach and Sulima beach.

surf1
(Pic: Tommy Trenchard)
(Pic: Tommy Trenchard)
(Pic: Tommy Trenchard)

Bureh beach seems to be gaining the highest level of popularity, probably due in part to the Bureh Beach Surf Club (BBSC). Some of its members are pictured above as part of a photographic essay by Sierra Leone-based photographer Tommy Trenchard.

The BBSC was set up in 2011 as a non-profit organisation and is the country’s first and only surf club. It’s located in Bureh, a small fishing village that is about a 90-minute drive from the capital Freetown.

Junior members of the Bureh Beach Club (Pic: Facebook)
Junior members of the Bureh Beach Surf Club (Pic: Facebook)

The four beaches are definitely spots to consider if you’re thinking of visiting the West African country. Those with Ecowas passports can get their passports stamped upon arrival if all documents are intact. However, be sure to check with the Sierra Leonean embassy where you live before departing. Non-Ecowas passport holders will need visas to enter.

Dynamic Africa is a multimedia curated blog focused on all facets of African cultures, African history, and the lives and experiences of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora – past and present. Visit the blog and connect with the curator, Funke Makinwa, on Twitter.