{"id":32882,"date":"2017-02-28T09:59:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T09:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/tanzania-backs-out-of-plan-to-publish-list-of\/"},"modified":"2017-02-28T09:59:15","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T09:59:15","slug":"tanzania-backs-out-of-plan-to-publish-list-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/tanzania-backs-out-of-plan-to-publish-list-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania backs out of plan to publish ‘list of gays"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Tanzania on Monday backed out of its plan to publish a list of names of gay people accused of selling sex online, saying this would “destroy evidence”.}<\/p>\n

Deputy health minister Hamisi Kigwangalla had called a press conference on Monday to publicise the list, after announcing the plan earlier this month.<\/p>\n

“We cancelled the press conference. We are not going to announce the names of (LGBTs) who publicly market themselves for technical reasons,” he wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n

“For strategic reasons and to avoid destroying evidence we will deal with this issue differently and will keep you informed at every step.”<\/p>\n

He also said that releasing the names would be akin to “freeing a devil in a bottle.”<\/p>\n

{{ANTI-GAY RHETORIC}}<\/p>\n

Kigwangalla’s threat to publish such a list came just days after the government announced it was stopping many privately run health centres from providing AIDS-related services, which Health Minister Ummy Mwalimu said promoted homosexuality.<\/p>\n

The United States criticised a move which “could impact US government funded programs and impede progress made over the past several years in addressing the HIV\/AIDS epidemic in Tanzania.”<\/p>\n

Gay male sex is punishable by anything from 30 years to life imprisonment under Tanzanian law, but there is no such ban on lesbian relations.<\/p>\n

However, politicians have largely ignored the gay community \u2014 which was not subject to levels of discrimination seen in other countries such as neighbouring Uganda \u2014 until a recent spike in anti-gay rhetoric by the government.<\/p>\n

{{ANAL EXAMINATIONS}}<\/p>\n

In July last year, the regional commissioner for the port city of Dar es Salaam, Paul Makonda, announced a crackdown against gays, followed by arrests in clubs.<\/p>\n

Dozens of men suspected of being gay have been detained and taken to hospital for anal exams to confirm their homosexuality.<\/p>\n

Also in July last year the government banned the import and sales of sexual lubricants, which Health Minister Ummy Mwalimu said encouraged homosexuality which led to the spread of HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n

Homosexuality is illegal in 38 of 54 countries in Africa, and is punishable by death in Mauritania, Sudan and Somalia, according to Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

Uganda in 2014 tried to impose the death penalty on those found guilty of being homosexual, however the controversial law was later repealed.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n

Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Tanzania on Monday backed out of its plan to publish a list of names of gay people accused of selling sex online, saying this would “destroy evidence”.} Deputy health minister Hamisi Kigwangalla had called a press conference on Monday to publicise the list, after announcing the plan earlier this month. “We cancelled the press conference. […]<\/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":[99],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","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":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","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":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32882","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=32882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32882"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32882"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}