Via Yemisi – Gay Cameroonian, Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé, imprisoned for sending love text message to same-sex person, dies.

That’s appalling.

He was sent to prison in March 2011 for sending a text message declaring his love for another adult human.  The message was a simple “I’m very much in love with you”. How does such a message constitute harm? Why should this lead to imprisonment?

Cameroonian activist, Lambert Lamda, said Mbédé had been out of hospital for about a month before he died and had received no medical care during that period.  ’”His family said they were going to remove the homosexuality which is in him. I went to see him in his village. He could not stand up, he couldn’t speak.”

 He couldn’t get a visa to leave Cameroon.

In July 2013, a prominent Cameroonian gay rights activist and journalist Eric Lembembe was gruesomely murdered. Mr Lembembe’s neck and feet was broken and his face, hands, and feet burned with an iron. How many more will die before the world wakes up to its responsibility? This horrific treatment of a person because of their sexual orientation is why we bother.

Hiding under culture, religion or inhumane laws to commit crimes against humanity must be thoroughly condemned. Silence is simply acquiescence to oppression.

The hell with religion, culture and inhumane laws that allow or encourage crimes against humanity.