The governor of Tanzania’s most populated city Dar es Salaam has announced a team will begin rounding up people suspected of being gay in a new anti-gay crackdown in the African nation.
Paul Makonda (pictured) urged the city’s four million residents to report any information they have about gay people before the crackdown starts on November 6, Agence France-Presse reported.
“I have information about the presence of many homosexuals in our province,” he said this week.
“These homosexuals boast on social networks.
“Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them next Monday.”
He said that gay sex “tramples on the moral values of Tanzanians and our two Christian and Muslim religions.”
Makonda said he was anticipating backlash from people outside Tanzania, but he would “prefer to anger those countries than to anger God.”
He told PM News Nigeria on Wednesday that he had drawn up a list of 200 people accused of homosexuality, based on “thousands” of calls he had received from the public.
Under British colonial-era laws, homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania with gay sex punishable with 30 years prison to a life sentence.
The country’s penal code criminalises anyone who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and homophobia is rife in the country.
Last year, Amnesty International said there had been “an unprecedented crackdown” on homosexuals in Tanzania and reported that authorities had subjected people to “forced anal examinations, a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that can amount to torture.”
Anti-LGBTIQ sentiment and arrests of LGBTIQ increased since Tanzanian President John Magufuli came into power in 2015.
In 2016, Tanzanian authorities devastated HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in the country by banning sexual lubricants and private HIV/AIDS health clinics, saying they encouraged gay sex.
