Gay Lawyer Jailed by Cameroon Court

(AFP) – 

 YAOUNDE — A court in Yaounde has sentenced three Cameroonian men arrested in July to five years in prison for engaging in gay sex, their lawyer said Wednesday. TheEkounou court sentenced the three on Tuesday to five years imprisonment and a fine, the heaviest sentence provided by Cameroonian law, which bans homosexuality, Michel Togue told AFP.

Two of  convicted men were present for the ruling but the third was sentenced in absentia, 
said Togue, who added he had appealed the decision.

"It's a bad ruling because it is a blatant violation of the law," the lawyer said, citing procedural technicalities when the guilty verdict was handed down.

He also accused the judge of peppering the hearing with homophobic innuendos.

The three were allegedly caught in the act in a vehicle in July.

"It's a shocking and unacceptable decision," said Alice Nkom, president of the pro-gay advocacy group Adefho. "It is not worthy of a country that speaks of human rights."

However Sismondi Barlev Bidjocka, head of a umbrella youth organisation which includes more than 400 associations, said that he was "very pleased" by the ruling, adding that the West was trying to impose its values on Cameroon.

"We are in a war against homosexuals," he said.

"Homosexuality is not something that is part of us. It is forbidden by our laws and that is why are fighting it."

On August 26, four other Cameroonians were remanded in custody and charged with "indecent behaviour" after what their lawyer described as a set-up.

Gay rights activists subsequently said Cameroon was preparing to toughen its laws on homosexuality and condemned what they said was an attempt to create a confusion between homosexuality and paedophilia.

In September this year, New York-based Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Paul Biya expressing concern.

"We write to express serious concern about the increased use of criminal laws to punish consensual same-sex relations between adults and non-normative gender expression in Cameroon in recent months," the letter said.

Thirty-eight of Africa's 53 countries currently have laws penalising homosexuality and the trend in recent years has been to toughen penalities.

Burundi in 2009 instituted prison terms to punish sexual relations between members of the same sex.

In Malawi a gay couple that held a wedding ceremony in December 2010 were handed a 14-year prison s