By Tabora Bojang
At a government press conference Tuesday, Information Minister Ismaila Ceesay was asked about the government’s apparent lack of tough stance on the rising trend of homosexuality in the country.
Homosexuality is illegal in The Gambia for both men and women, with penalties ranging from 14 years in prison to life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality”, a term that includes “serial offenders” and those who wilfully transmit others with HIV.
Asked about the government’s perceived reluctance to arrest a man who recently appeared on the social media and confessed to being gay, Dr Ceesay replied that it is the job of the police to enforce the country’s anti-gay laws and that no “ministry, minister or president” could dictate the police in the performance of their mandate.
“When somebody violates the law, it is for the police to act and not the executive. We cannot interfere in the work of the police. Gambian law criminalises homosexuality and same sex marriage and if somebody comes out to make certain confessions, it is for the police to apply the law but the government cannot interfere in that. Even in Senegal, the government is not interfering in that; it is the Senegalese police doing their work,” the minister said.
When asked whether the police are not under the government, Minister Ceesay argued: “Yeah, but the government cannot jump into things outside its mandate. We have an independent police institution and if someone comes out and confesses to be a homosexual, it is the responsibility of the police to investigate and prosecute if they have evidence. We cannot interfere in that as a government. You don’t expect any ministry, minister or president to be involved in that.”
