Homosexuality: Kenya Upholds Law Criminalising Gay Sex - Liberty TV/Radio - News - Voice For All! Vision For Alll!
Publisher (J.T)
May 24, 2019
Kenya’sHigh Court has ruled against campaigners seeking to overturn a law banning gaysex.
Thejudges rejected claims that the colonial-era law violated the new constitution,which guarantees equality, dignity and privacy.
Thepenal code criminalises “carnal knowledge against the order ofnature” – widely understood to refer to anal intercourse between men.
Gaysex is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Kenya’sNational Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission says it has dealt with 15prosecutions under the penal codes in 2018, with no convictions.
Butit had argued for the law to be scrapped because it gives rise to a climate ofhomophobia.
In2016, LGBT rights activists filed a case with Kenya’s High Court saying thathomosexual relations should be decriminalised.
Theyargued that the state has no business regulating matters of intimacy.
Thecase wasn’t heard until February 2018 and a verdict was initially expected inFebruary 2019 – but delayed until Friday.