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The West African nation of Burkina Faso’s ruling junta unanimously passed a law banning homosexuality yesterday.

“The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years as well as fines,” said Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala. “If a person is a perpetrator of homosexual or similar practices, all the bizarre behavior, they will go before the judge.”

He said that foreigners will be deported under the law.

Burkina Faso has been under the rule of a military junta since September 2022, when former Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba – who himself came to power in a coup d’état several months earlier – was removed from his office. The civil unrest is a result of the government’s inability to contain an Islamist insurgency.

The Muslim-majority nation had been among the 22 out of 54 African states where same-sex relations were not criminalized. The one-time French colony didn’t inherit anti-homosexuality laws found in many former British colonies.

But the bill to ban homosexuality was supported by 71 unelected members of the transitional parliament yesterday as part of a wider set of family and citizenship law reforms “popularized through an awareness campaign,” officials said. The bill was initially approved by the military government’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, last year. Traoré has been shifting the country’s focus away from its close relationship with France and toward Russia.

The law goes into effect immediately.

Human rights groups have accused the government of cracking down on human rights with mass arrests and conscripting critics into the military.

In late 2024, neighboring Mali also banned homosexuality. Two other African nations – Ghana and Uganda – increased the punishments for homosexuality in recent years.