A COUPLE in Malawi were yesterday found guilty of having gay sex, a crime under laws dating from the colonial era, in a judgment that campaigners warn could set back human rights across Africa.
Steven Monjeza (26) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga (20) were convicted of unnatural acts and gross indecency, prompting anger and condemnation from activists in Malawi and around the world. The couple, who will learn their sentence tomorrow, could be jailed for up to 14 years with hard labour.
Mr Monjeza and Mr Chimbalanga became Malawi’s first same-sex couple to commit publicly to marriage at a symbolic ceremony last December. They were arrested two days later and detained in harsh conditions. Homosexuality in Malawi is outlawed and remains deeply taboo.
Delivering judgment in Blantyre yesterday, magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa-Usiwa found the couple guilty of buggery, which he described as “against the order of nature”. Police prosecutor Barbra Mchenga asked the magistrate to mete out a harsh punishment because the couple had left a “scar on morality” in Malawi. “They showed no remorse, they showed no regret of their action,” Mr Mchenga said.
An acquittal would have been likely to cause outrage in the socially conservative country. But the guilty verdict has provoked no less anger from activists and human rights groups. – (Guardian service)