2 celebrities among 12 people arrested in anti-gay sweep in Senegal

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Two of Senegal’s highest-profile celebrities were among 12 people rounded up and charged with committing “unnatural,” or homosexual, acts, among other crimes, police in the capital of Dakar announced Sunday.

Pape Cheikh Diallo, a widely admired TV and radio presenter, and Djiby Dramé, a popular musician, were two of the men charged in the case linked to an individual who has admitted to knowingly spreading HIV, according to The New York Times.

An HIV-positive individual “confessed to knowingly infecting about ten people he had contacted, primarily through WhatsApp groups,” authorities said.

Police didn’t elaborate on who the individual is or his connection with the other men, but all 12 men were remanded to prison while a judge investigates the case.

A preliminary indictment from prosecutors added a charge of money laundering to the evidence used to initially round the men up, Senegal news site Seneweb reports. All of the men broke down in tears as the judge announced their pretrial detention.

“A lot of what’s being said in the media about Pape Cheikh is not true,” said a lawyer for TV presenter Diallo, Abdou Dieng, after the hearing. Other lawyers in court declined to comment.

Diallo, 42, is best known for interviewing celebrities on TV and radio, and enjoys a large fan base of young people on TikTok, with about three million followers.

Dramé, also in his 40s, appeals to older Senegalese and is well known for duets with his wife that feature prominently at weddings in the country. They host an annual high-society gala that celebrates Bazin, the luxurious damask cotton fabric with roots in West Africa.

Stop Homophobie, a Paris-based LGBTQ+ rights group with ties to Senegal, condemned the arrests. The state action will further expose the community to stigma in the devoutly Muslim country, the group’s director told Seneweb.

Senegal earns a score of 4 out of 100 on the Equaldex Equality Index.

The Senegal Penal Code states, “whoever will have committed an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years.”

As well as Diallo and Dramé, one of West Africa’s most iconic artists has been swept up in the controversy surrounding the arrests. TFM, the country’s most-watched television channel and Diallo’s employer, was founded by Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, described by Rolling Stone as “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa.

Islamist critics of “degenerate” Western values are implicating N’Dour in the scandal over his connection with Diallo as his “boss” at TFM.

“Whoever plays games with Islam will suffer the wrath of God,” said one reply to Seneweb’s story of the arrests.