{{Suspected homosexuals in Cameroon say they have been tortured and raped in prison, according to a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch and three local organizations.}}<\/p>\n
The 55-page report, titled “Guilty by Association,” documents reported abuses by authorities prosecuting suspected gays and lesbians. Those convicted can face up to five years in prison in Cameroon.<\/p>\n
The report documents the case of one man who was tied to a chair and beaten so badly he couldn’t walk for two weeks. Another defendant described being raped repeatedly and said his rib was broken in a beating.<\/p>\n
“Prison guards made no attempt to stop the gang rape and assault, and no one was punished for it, highlighting another sad irony of Cameroon’s law: People are convicted to prison time for consensual sexual conduct, but once in prison, convicts who are not considered ‘homosexual’ can sexually victimize them with impunity,” the report said.<\/p>\n
Neela Ghoshal, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said many cases rested on confessions obtained during beatings and torture or on suspects’ appearance and other behavior.<\/p>\n
“No one should be sentenced to prison time because they blurt out a confession to stop torture, or because a judge doesn’t like what they drink, how they dress, or what kind of text messages they send,” Ghoshal said.<\/p>\n
Cameroon’s Justice Ministry has acknowledged that human rights abuses have occurred but did not issue a specific response to the allegations in Thursday’s report.<\/p>\n
President Paul Biya told diplomats in early 2012 that he would push for a moratorium on prosecutions of gays and lesbians, according to Thursday’s report.<\/p>\n
No specific steps have been taken, though Biya told journalists in January there could be a “change of mind” on homosexuality in Cameroon.<\/p>\n
Although many African countries have laws banning consensual same-sex conduct, Cameroon pursues prosecutions “more aggressively than almost any country in the world,” the report said.<\/p>\n
{Associated Press}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Suspected homosexuals in Cameroon say they have been tortured and raped in prison, according to a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch and three local organizations.}} The 55-page report, titled “Guilty by Association,” documents reported abuses by authorities prosecuting suspected gays and lesbians. Those convicted can face up to five years in prison in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}