Gay Man’s Corpse Dug Up and Burned in Senegal
Agence France-Presse.The video footage shared on local and social media shows people gathered around a large fire, filming the scene on their phones.
Homosexuality and consensual same-sex relations, deemed “against nature” in the Muslim-majority country, are criminalized and carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.While homosexuality is largely not accepted in Senegalese society, the incident offended many because it was viewed as disrespecting the dead.
Senegal’s judiciary said it was opening an investigation to identify and punish the perpetrators, whom it accused of “barbarity.”A local police official told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that four individuals suspected of “being among the masterminds” of the desecration of the man’s grave have been arrested.Although the incident is not common, it is also not the first time that the body of someone thought to be gay has been exhumed.
At least two cases of similar incidents were documented in the central and western parts of the country between 2008 and 2009.According to local media, the deceased man’s family had first sought to bury the man in Senegal’s holy city of Touba, but were denied, in part, due to allegations of him being gay.
