Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE, ASSOCIATED PRESS) Malawi gay wedding pair face jail

COMMENT - Oh dear. This is a much more complex issue than Associated Press would have it. Homosexuality is illegal in Malawi (and Uganda) in the sense that there are criminal laws against it - however, freedom from discrimination is also constitutionally guaranteed, making those anti gay laws unconstitutional and therefore unenforcable, because the Constitution is the highest law of the land - the law against which all other laws must be tested. So rather than provoke an arrest and force those laws to be tested in court, they skip straight to gay marriage. Believe it or not, but this is not doing Africa's image any good. Now let's see if their conviction is still overturned on appeal. And let's hope that there will be as much publicity for their acquittal as there has been for their conviction.

Malawi gay wedding pair face jail
by Associated Press
18/05/2010 00:00:00

A MALAWI court on Tuesday convicted a gay couple who staged an illegal same-sex wedding of violating "the order of nature", which could land them with up to 14 years in prison.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were arrested on December 28 following a symbolic wedding and have been in jail ever since. Homesexuality is illegal in Malawi and in several other African countries.

"The state has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the two were married," Magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa said.

The judge convicted both men of engaging in gay sex which he said was "against the order of nature."

Malawi's government is coming under pressure from Western donors over the issue. For a poor country, 40% of whose development budget depends on donors, that is no mean threat.

The ‘guilty’ verdict has drawn condemnation from London, where the prominent gay rights activist Peter Tatchell described it as “outrageous”.

By Tuesday, 67 British MPs had added their signatures to a House of Commons Early Day Motion, condemning the pair’s arrest and prosecution.

Tatchell said: “While Steven and Tiwonge freely confirmed their love for each other, there was no credible evidence that they had committed any illegal homosexual acts.

[That is the route they should have taken - without of course breaking laws on public indecency. That way, the existing laws could be tested, found unconstitutional, and be stricken from the books. Now, they have all this complicated 'gay marriage' stuff to deal with - people's beliefs, christianity, etc. Anyway... - MrK]

"The law under which they were convicted is a discriminatory law that only applies to same-sex relations. It is unconstitutional. Article 20 of Malawi's constitution guarantees equality and non-discrimination. The law in Malawi is not supposed to discriminate.”

Tatchell, who once famously tried to make a citizen’s arrest on gay critic President Robert Mugabe, said Malawi's anti-gay laws were “devised in London in the nineteenth century and imposed on the people of Malawi by the British colonisers and their army of occupation.”

He added: "With so much hatred and violence in the world, it is bizarre that any court would criminalise two people for loving each other.”

[It would be a much easier case to make without dragging marriage into it. - MrK]

Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, MALAWI, PETER THATCHELL, STEVEN MONJEZA, TIWONGE CHIMBALANGA

posted by MrK @ 3:46 PM