In Gabon, homosexuality is no longer a crime!

The country's National Assembly voted to decriminalize homosexuality.

On Tuesday evening, June 23, Gabonese deputies voted to decriminalize homosexual intercourse, canceling an amendment to the Penal Code voted a year earlier which condemned homosexuality as a "violation of morals ", according to the journal France-Presse.

In sub-Saharan Africa, countries prohibit or punish in the eyes of all homosexual relationships. Sometimes sanctions can go as far as the death penalty. In Gabon, no law explicitly mentioned homosexuality before an amendment to the Penal Code was passed by the Senate in July 2019, prohibiting "same-sex relationships ".

But change of course, the National Assembly adopted, last Tuesday, a modification of the penal law which deletes this paragraph, reported on Wednesday many Gabonese media. And the information was confirmed to the AFP by a source close to the National Assembly.

The latter clarified that "48 deputies voted for decriminalization, 24 against, and 25 abstained. " The bill was brought by the Gabonese Prime Minister, Julien Nkoghe Bekale, present during the debates.

This result, however, shows a deep division of the country on this issue.

Raised by the site Jeune Afrique, Blaise Louembe, deputy of the Gabonese Democratic Party, declared: "I have just expressed my vote against the decriminalization of homosexuality (…) I am (nevertheless) in solidarity with all the rest of the text but my religious convictions, my attachment to the Constitution and our ancestral values ​​do not command me to authorize or encourage homosexual practices. "

As of July 2019, same-sex relationships were punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a fine of 5 million CFA francs (7,600 euros).

Oddly enough, the criminalization of homosexual relationships, voted by the Senate in the middle of summer, during a suspension of the activity of the National Assembly, had gone relatively unnoticed in the national media. The decriminalization voted on Tuesday made a lot of noise in the online press and on social networks.

"Parliament is restoring a fundamental human right for its citizens. The right to love, freely, without being condemned. Yes to dignity, no to hate" welcomed Sylvia Bongo Ondimba, the First Lady of Gabon.

The marriage of same-sex couples remains prohibited.

A homosexual couple on the cover of Marie Claire Brazil

Video by Clemence chevallet