The good folks at Care2.com are sponsoring a petition urging Cameroonian President, Paul Biya, and his government to stop violating international human rights laws and to repeal Section 347a of the Cameroonian penal code, a section that criminalizes same-sex sexual acts.
The petition follows the arrest on July 25, 2011, of two young men, a 19-year-old known only as Jonas, and a 20-year-old known as Francky, in a car outside a nightclub in the capital, Yaounde. Currently in jail awaiting trial, they could face up to five years in prison.
Jonas and Francky are only the latest Cameroonian citizens to be charged under Section 347a. In March 2011, Jean-Claude Roger Mbede was sentenced to three years in prison for text messages he sent to a male acquaintance. The Guardian reported that Mdebe was the "victim of entrapment by the security forces, which regularly target and prosecute gay men."
And, to make matters worse, there is a very real danger, reports Care2.com, that due to the current pervasive homophobic climate in Cameroon, "all of these men and others are being subjected to ill-treatment by guards and fellow prisoners."
Please sign the petition here. As we have seen in other campaigns for justice, signing petitions really can make a difference.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Terry Derrick
Liz Carson
Sean Previl
Poppi Iceland
Darryl Ross
queerMama
Salon.com
Comments
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santorum (san-TOR-um) n.
1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter
that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.
...and every link that anybody posts anywhere helps keep it right at the top!
Also worth a look is the Wikipedia article about this Google-bomb.