{"id":28777,"date":"2016-09-21T02:49:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T02:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/botswana-to-deport-anti-gay-us-pastor-steven\/"},"modified":"2016-09-21T02:48:37","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T02:48:37","slug":"botswana-to-deport-anti-gay-us-pastor-steven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/botswana-to-deport-anti-gay-us-pastor-steven\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana to deport anti-gay US pastor Steven Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Botswana is to deport controversial US pastor Steven Anderson after he said on a local radio that homosexuals should be &#8220;stoned to death&#8221;.}<\/p>\n<p>President Ian Khama told the Reuters news agency that he had personally ordered his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want hate speech in this country. Let him do it in his own country,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nLast week, South Africa barred Mr Anderson from visiting because of his critical remarks about homosexuality.<\/p>\n<p>Homosexual acts are illegal in Botswana, as in many African countries.<\/p>\n<p>After his visa for South Africa was rejected, Mr Anderson had posted on his Facebook page: &#8220;Thank God we still have a wide open door in Botswana.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Anderson was taking part in a morning show hosted by GabzFM station together with a local pastor and an LGBT activist.<\/p>\n<p>The show&#8217;s presenter Reginald Richardson told the BBC that Mr Anderson expressed disdain for homosexuals during the show saying that they should be killed.<\/p>\n<p>Botswana&#8217;s private Mmegi newspaper reported that security agents apprehended the pastor after the radio show.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am not being arrested. I am leaving Botswana voluntarily,&#8221; Mr Anderson told witnesses at the radio station, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n<p>Onkokame Mosweu, a commentator on gay and lesbian affairs, commended the government&#8217;s action but said that the pastor should not have been allowed into the country.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Khama said that the pastor had been put on a visa watch list after he was banned from travelling to South Africa, but the order had not been communicated to all officials manning the country&#8217;s borders.<\/p>\n<p>The preacher had arrived in Botswana late last week and had given a sermon at a local church that he helped set up, Mr Richardson said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Anderson runs the Faithful Word Baptist Church, which says that homosexuality is an abomination punishable by the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>His church is based in the US state of Arizona and describes itself as an &#8220;old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church&#8221;.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15140 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91178727_stephenanderson-2.jpg\" alt=\"Steven Anderson has said he stands by his views about homosexuality\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Botswana is to deport controversial US pastor Steven Anderson after he said on a local radio that homosexuals should be &#8220;stoned to death&#8221;.} President Ian Khama told the Reuters news agency that he had personally ordered his arrest. &#8220;We don&#8217;t want hate speech in this country. Let him do it in his own country,&#8221; he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28777"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28777"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}