Outcry after 21 people arrested in Ghana for 'advocating LGBTQ activities'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Outcry after 21 people arrested in Ghana for ‘advocating LGBTQ activities’

Rights groups condemn arrests in Ho city as illegal and say those held have been denied access to lawyers

Emmanuel Akinwotu
Mon 24 May 2021 16.50 BST

Rights groups have condemned the arrest of 21 people by Ghanaian police for “unlawful assembly” and promoting an LGBTQ+ agenda, in the latest move against sexual minorities in the country.

Police have held 21 people since Friday for “advocating LGBTQ activities” at an event the previous day in Ho city, in the eastern Volta region.

Several rights groups called the arrests illegal, saying those detained did not have access to legal representation before they were remanded to court on Friday, and that some suffered medical illnesses and needed treatment for trauma.

The arrests came after a group of journalists reportedly descended on an event by the rights group Rightify Ghana, which was held to provide training for activists and paralegals when supporting LGBTQ+ people.

“The press teamed up with the police to storm the meeting location, started taking images, took their belongings and arrested them,” Rightify Ghana said in a statement.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/outcry-people-arrested-ghana-advocating-lgbtq-activities

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Here we are in the 21st century and STILL the GLBT are abused throughout the world!

It has to STOP!

[Celerity]

2. Shameful, as Ghana is so often held up as the best run West African nation, the model, BUT

when you bring up LGBTQ rights there, I have been met (this is not online much, this is in real life mostly, including at UCLA) with uncomfortable silence, diminution of the issue, or outright hostility from some of the Afrocentric crowd (especially from the Hotep types).