Living Conditions
Cameroon is a conservative society in which homosexuality is frowned upon. In 2006, a number of tabloids published the names of at least 50 very prominent people they claimed were homosexual. They condemned them for deviant behaviour. The stories boosted newspaper circulation, but were criticized by the state communication council for invading people's privacy. The campaign provoked a national debate about gay rights and privacy.
A Cameroon court jailed Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga for four months for defaming Gregoire Owona, a government minister named in the list of 50 presumed homosexuals in Cameroon.
The U.S. Department of State's 2010 Human Rights Report found that "homosexual persons generally kept a low profile because of the pervasive societal stigma, discrimination, and harassment as well as the possibility of imprisonment. Gays and lesbians suffered from harassment and extortion by law enforcement officials. False allegations of homosexuality were used to harass enemies or to extort money." In 2012, the first association for lesbian and queer women, World Queens, was founded.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Cameroon
Famous quotes containing the words living and/or conditions:
“Every individual, like a statue, develops in his life the laws of harmony, integrity, and freedom; or those of deformity, immorality, and bondage. Whether we wish to or not, we are all drawing our own pictures in the lives we are living ...”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)