West Turns Africa into Gay Battlefield
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Western evangelists and gay rights groups are stoking Africa’s bitter rows over homosexuality, writes RW Johnson in Cape Town

Steven Monjeza (L) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Photo: The Sunday Times
The trial of a young male couple charged with unnatural practices and gross indecency after announcing their engagement in Malawi was adjourned last week when one of the accused collapsed in court while enduring jeers from the public gallery.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, was made to return with a mop to clean up his own vomit, even though he has malaria.

He and his boyfriend, Steven Monjeza, 26, have been held in Chichiri prison, Blantyre, for more than a week — in order, the judge says, to protect them from mob violence.

Chichiri has a reputation for overcrowding, disease and homosexual rape. The couple say they have been badly beaten and Peter Tatchell, the British gay activist, describes their conditions as appalling.

Such scenes will only increase the pressure from western human rights activists and donor countries on Malawi’s government to moderate its draconian anti-gay laws, for which the couple have provided a test case. They face up to 14 years in jail.

Following similar donor pressure, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda distanced himself from an anti-homosexuality bill before parliament in Kampala last week. Museveni appealed to MPs to “go slow” on the private member’s bill, which stipulates the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, including homosexual acts by HIV-positive men.

Museveni said he had come under pressure from Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in a 45-minute phone call. He was also struck by the fact that a US protest rally had drawn 300,000 people, saying he would have great difficulty attracting such a crowd.

The two cases illustrate the way Africa is becoming a battleground over differing attitudes to homosexuality in the West. >>> RW Johnson in Cape Town. Additional reporting: Rosie Kinchen | Sunday, January 17, 2010

Battle Between Pro-Secular and Islamic Government Continues in Turkey
VOA: In Turkey the deep divisions between supporters of the secular state and the Islamic-rooted government have reopened again following the death of a well-known secular campaigner. The Tuesday funeral of Turkan Saylan, the founder of a pro-secular association committed to sending girls to school, turned into a rally against the government and in support of the secular state. Turkan Saylan, shortly before her death, became the target of an ongoing probe into an alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Saylan personified Turkish secular state

"Turkey will always be secular," tens of thousands of people chanted as they followed the coffin of professor Turkan Saylan who died of breast cancer on Monday. The 74-year-old human rights activist in many ways personified the Turkish secular state. 



Born in Istanbul, in the early years of the Turkish republic, she rose to become a world authority in leprosy and was in the forefront of eradicating the disease in Turkey. But it was her non-stop campaigning for the education of girls, many of them from very poor families, through her Contemporary Life Association, which secured her place in the hearts of thousands of people in Turkey.



"She touched some people lives, she made it so much more beautiful, she gave some many opportunities to children, to students with economic difficulties. She gave them a chance to choose," said a woman. "This is why I am here, this why so many tens of thousands of people are here, because we want to show Saylan we appreciated her, we love her and despite all the work she has done she was treated as a guilty person by the state, and we do not approve of that." >>> By Dorian Jones, Istanbul | Wednesday, May 20, 2009