Ethiopia cracks down on gay sex in hotels, other venues

Reuters
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023

A general view of the skyline of Addis Ababa

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Security forces in Ethiopia are cracking down on hotels, bars and restaurants in the capital Addis Ababa where gay sexual activity is alleged to take place, the city administration said on Thursday.

Several African countries that criminalise homosexuality have enforced the law more harshly in recent years, with many governments proposing stricter laws and sentences, including most recently in Ghana and Uganda.

Rights groups say the LGBT community in Ethiopia remains underground because LGBT people face high levels of discrimination and fear violence and ostracism if their identities are discovered.

The Addis Ababa Peace and Security Administration Bureau, a government body, said it was taking action "against institutions where homosexual acts are carried out" following tip-offs from the public, and had already raided a guest house in the city.

"If there is any sympathy for those who commit and execute this abominable act that is hated by man and God, (the bureau) will continue to take action," the city administration said in a post on Facebook.

Gay sex is prohibited by law in Ethiopia, but there are no recent reports of people being convicted for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity.

Earlier this week an LGBT advocacy group, the House of Guramayle, said it condemned a recent escalation in attacks on individuals in Ethiopia based on their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.

(This story has been corrected to change sourcing from Ethiopia News Agency to Addis Ababa Peace and Security Administration Bureau in paragraphs 1, 4 and 5)

(Reporting by Tiksa Negeri, Writing by Hereward Holland, Editing by William Maclean)

LGBTQ+ people in Ethiopia blame attacks on their community on inciteful and lingering TikTok videos

Thu, August 10, 2023

Secret service agents watch through their binoculars as a rainbow appears in the sky before President Barack Obama arrived at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 26, 2015. Members of Ethiopia’s LGBTQ+ community say they face a wave of online harassment and physical attacks and blame much of it on the social media platform TikTok, which they say is failing to take down posts calling for homosexual and transgender people to be whipped, stabbed and killed. 

AP Photo/Sayyid Azim

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Members of Ethiopia’s LGBTQ+ community say they face a wave of online harassment and physical attacks and blame much of it on the social media platform TikTok, which they say is failing to take down posts calling for homosexual and transgender people to be whipped, stabbed and killed.

A local LGBTQ+ support group, House of Guramayle, said that some TikTok users are also outing Ethiopians by sharing their names, photographs and online profiles on one of the country’s most popular social media platforms.

In Ethiopia, homosexual acts are punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The East African country whose population of close to 120 million is split between Christianity and Islam is largely conservative, and while LGBTQ+ people have long suffered abuse, activists say the hostility has reached a new level.

“TikTok is being used to incite violence,” said Bahiru Shewaye, co-founder of House of Guramayle. Bahiru said several videos have been reported to TikTok but “we are still waiting for them to take action.”

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

The AP on Thursday reviewed several videos that appeared to violate TikTok’s community guidelines by inciting violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In one video, a popular evangelical Christian pastor calls for gay people to be stripped naked and publicly whipped.

“Then (gay) people all over the world would say, 'Oh, these (Ethiopian) people, this is what they do to gays, therefore we will not go to that country,'” says the pastor, whose account has over 250,000 followers. The video was posted on Aug. 5.

In another video posted Aug. 2, a TikTok user calls for gay men to be stabbed in the buttocks. In a third, posted in the past week, a young man says, “We should find them and kill them,” before making a stomping gesture with his foot.

The videos are in Amharic, Ethiopia’s main language.

It’s not clear what sparked the videos, but Bahiru said Uganda’s new anti-LGBT law that prescribes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is playing a role.

LGBTQ+ Ethiopians said the surge of abusive content has left them feeling unsafe, with several fleeing abroad in recent weeks. One nonbinary person said they are now in neighboring Kenya after they were attacked by a group of men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, last month.

“It is very terrifying, to be honest,” they said. “I think I will stay here as long as the situation continues in Ethiopia. … It has always been bad, but this time it feels different.”

Another LGBTQ+ man, a student in Addis Ababa, said he has been outed twice on TikTok. In May, shortly after the first outing video appeared online, he was badly beaten at a restaurant by a group of classmates, who fractured his cheek.

“I don’t feel safe at school after that, so I stopped going,” he said.

The second outing video appeared in late July and has attracted over 275,000 views. It is a slideshow of individual and group photographs under the banner “Homosexuals live freely in Ethiopia.” The top comment says “Let’s kill them, give us their address.”

The first video has been removed, the student said. The second is still online.

Ethiopian public institutions have been accused of fanning the discrimination. Last week, Addis Ababa’s tourism bureau in a statement posted on Facebook told hotels not to allow “homosexual activities” on their premises and warned “action will be taken” if this happens. The bureau is part of the Addis Ababa city administration.

Soon afterward, the city’s police department launched a hotline for reporting “illegal activities that deviate from the law and social values.”

“This was a vulnerable group in the first place,” Bahiru said. “But the new scale of these calls for violence, it has grown out of control.”

LGBTQ+ advocates have long warned that online hate and harassment can lead to violence offline.

All major social media platforms — including TikTok — do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment, especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said in its Social Media Safety Index earlier this year.

Uganda president defiant after World Bank suspends funding over LGBT law

A session of the Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg

Updated Thu, August 10, 2023
By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) -Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday denounced the World Bank's decision to suspend new funding in response to a harsh anti-LGBTQ law and vowed to find alternative sources of credit.

The country would have to revise its budget to absorb the move's potential impact, a junior finance minister said.

The World Bank said on Tuesday that the law, which imposes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, contradicted its values and that it would pause new funding until it could test measures to prevent discrimination in projects it finances.

The World Bank has an existing portfolio of $5.2 billion in Uganda, although these projects will not be affected.


The anti-LGBTQ law, enacted in May, has drawn widespread criticism from local and international rights organisations and Western governments, though it is popular domestically.

Museveni said in a statement that Uganda was trying to reduce borrowing in any case and would not give in to pressure from foreign institutions.

"It is, therefore, unfortunate that the World Bank and other actors dare to want to coerce us into abandoning our faith, culture, principles and sovereignty, using money. They really underestimate all Africans," he said.

Museveni said that if Uganda needed to borrow, it could tap other sources, and that oil production expected to start by 2025 would provide additional revenues.

He added he hoped the World Bank would reconsider its decision.

The government will ask parliament to vote through a revised 2023-2024 (July-June) budget to reflect the potential financial impact of the lending suspension, junior finance minister Henry Musasizi told parliament on Thursday.

"We shall be coming in one week or so... to ask for your approval," Musasizi told lawmakers.

In June, the United States imposed visa restrictions on some Ugandan officials in response to the law. President Joe Biden also ordered a review of U.S. aid to Uganda.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Hereward Holland, George Obulutsa, Aaron Ross, Bernadette Baum and Tomasz Janowski)