LGBTQ activists in Ivory Coast concerned over wave of attacks

LGBTQ activists in Ivory Coast expressed concern on Thursday over verbal and physical attacks fanned by social media targeting gay and transgender people.

Anti-LGBTQ content soared on social media at the start of last month, spurred by rumours of a child abuse case supposedly involving a gay person.

"Since the start of August, around 30 physical homophobic attacks have been recorded" by an umbrella LGBTQ movement in the West African country, Brice Donald Dibahi, founder of NGO Gromo, told AFP.

Unlike many African countries, Ivory Coast does not outlaw gay sex.

However, Dibahi, 32, told AFP that there "has always been homophobia, whether in the street or on social media, but I have never seen this type of escalation".

Louna, head of the Right To Be Different NGO and a transgender woman, agreed and said she has had to shut her organisation's headquarters.

"I've never seen a movement of this magnitude," the 44-year-old said.

Louna is preparing to leave Ivory Coast's commercial hub of Abidjan and reported hearing threatening remarks in recent weeks in her neighbourhood, such as: "You are perverting society so you must not exist."

Five legal complaints have been filed this month for "assault and battery" or "insults" over incidents that mostly took place in Abidjan, Dibahi said.

But the political capital Yamoussoukro has also been affected, according to a resident contacted by AFP who said he was threatened.

"We're afraid to go to the market, to go to the restaurant to eat, because you never know what can happen," Dibahi said.

On Thursday, Ivory Coast's national human rights council called on citizens "to renounce violence in the expression of disagreements".

The council said it "firmly believed" that the protection of LGBTQ rights "could and should be carried out" while respecting Ivorian "cultural values".

But it also asked the LGBTQ community to "avoid any behaviour that could be perceived as provocative or ostentatious".

In late 2021 there were heated exchanges in parliament when it adopted an article of the penal code which no longer mentioned "sexual orientation" as discrimination, contrary to the draft.

Homosexuality is illegal in around 30 African countries, and some including Uganda and Ghana have recently toughened their laws.