Remember the February arrests of of five gay men in Senegal who were accused of participating in a same-sex wedding? Their release from a Dakar jail triggered a wave of anti-gay riots and arrests across the country. An inspiring follow-up to that story can be found in this morning's New York Times which frames the larger wave of anti-gay hysteria that has swept across Africa.
One of those arrested who later the fled Senegal is the celebrated entertainer Pape Mbaye—pronounced POP mm-BYE—who was granted refugee status in the United States. This is said to be "one of the rare instances when such protection has been granted to a foreigner facing persecution based on sexual orientation."
Mbaye says he has known he was gay from a very young age and "seldom tried to hide his sexuality", flaunting his persona as a singer and entertainer and "often wearing makeup and jewelry in public." That flamboyance eventually nearly cost him his life after a Senegalese magazine published photographs of what was alleged to be an underground gay marriage. Mbaye appeared in the photos and was accused of organizing the event. That is when his harrowing ordeal began.
On the morning after the article’s publication, Mr. Mbaye and several gay friends were arrested by the police, who held them for four days. During his detention, Mr. Mbaye said, he was questioned about his participation in the marriage ceremony, which he asserted was a party, not a wedding. Under diplomatic pressure from the Netherlands and Denmark, the Senegalese authorities released Mr. Mbaye and his friends.
The singer said the police told him and his friends that they should go into hiding. “The police cannot
guarantee your security because the entire society will be out to get you,” a police official said, according to testimony that Mr. Mbaye would later give to Human Rights Watch.
While he was in detention, his apartment was looted and anti-gay graffiti was scrawled on the wall of the building, he said. He and several gay friends fled to Ziguinchor in south Senegal, but in mid-February, a mob wielding broken bottles, forks and other weapons stormed the house and beat them, Mr. Mbaye said.
Mbaye was one of many Senegalese gays who escaped to Gambia. Unfortunately that same week President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia vowed to behead all homosexuals in his country. Mbaye immediately returned to Dakar and "was discovered and chased by a crowd." Mbaye later went into hiding and escaped to Ghana and the United States with the help of Human Rights Watch. "I am like a hunted animal," Mbaye said.
Pape Mbaye now lives in the Bronx and is quite pleased to live in a city where diversity and flamboyance is celebrated. Unfortunately, he has encountered some Senegalese who recognize him, including one former countryman who ridiculed and threatened him.
The State Department's decision to grant refugee status to Mbaye is excellent news to the many gays and lesbians in Africa who have been persecuted. In September, a federal appeals court ruled a gay Jamaican would face persecution if he returned to his native land. In August, a lesbian detained in Puerto Rico was spared deportation for similar reasons.
Persecuted in Africa, Finding Refuge in New York [NYT]
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