The New York Times. “I think that if we find these kinds of people in Burundi, it is better to take them to a stadium and stone them.
And that cannot be a sin,” Ndayishimiye said during a December 29, 2023, event where he answered questions from journalists and the public. “That’s what they deserve.”He also railed against Western countries, suggesting that they had made acceptance of foreign aid conditioned upon accepting homosexuality and LGBTQ rights.“Let them keep it,” he said of the financial support from those countries.A gay rights activist in Burundi, speaking to the Times on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, expressed fears that Ndayishimiye’s statement “worsens an already unsafe environment” by effectively condoning, and some would say, even encouraging, Burundians to engage in extrajudicial killings of LGBTQ people.According to Reuters, the U.S.
State Department expressed concern over the broader implications of the Burundian president’s remarks, but did not specifically address his comments about stoning LGBTQ people.“The United States is deeply troubled by President Ndayishimiye’s remarks targeting certain vulnerable and marginalized Burundians,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
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