Tanzania has deported three South African lawyers after they were accused of promoting homosexuality.
The Initiative for Strategic Litigation (ISLA) in Africa said that the three had been “deported earlier this evening”, in the statement dated Friday (Oct 27).
The lawyers were amongst a group of 13 people, including a Ugandan and Tanzanians, who were arrested last Tuesday at the Peacock hotel in Dar es Salaam for taking part in a meeting to discuss challenging a law stopping private health clinics from providing HIV and Aids services.
Sibongile Ndashe, who was deported along with two colleagues from South Africa’s ISLA on Friday, told a press conference there was no crime they could be charged with, as the meeting was not about homosexuality.
Ndashe adds that they had no right to do so, and has accused authorities in Dar es Salaam of holding her and her colleagues “hostage”.
“Our demands to see the grounds on which we were deported were ignored,” said Ndashe
Lazaro Mambosasa, chief of Dar es Salaam police, told reporters after the lawyers initial arrests that “they were promoting homosexuality”.
Homosexuality is a crime in Tanzania, “the law forbids this act between people of the same sex, it is a violation of our country’s laws,” said Mambosasa.
The arrests followed a September speech by Deputy Health Minister Hamisi Kingwangalla, who vowed in front of parliament to fight with all their strength against groups supporting homosexuality in the country.
Human Rights Watch said the group was exploring “the possibility of mounting legal challenges to the government’s ban on drop-in centres serving key populations at risk of HIV, as well as the ban on importation of water-based lubricants, an essential HIV prevention tool”.
Tanzania has vowed to deport foreigners campaigning for gay rights in a country where gay male sex is punishable by anything from 30 years to life imprisonment.
According to Amnesty International, homosexuality is illegal in 38 of 54 African states and is punishable by death in Mauritania, Somalia and Sudan.
Uganda repealed a 2014 move to impose the death penalty on gay people.
