A newspaper in Cameroon has accused more than 50 prominent figures of homosexuality, in a crusade that has rocked the country's political ands business elites.
Source:
SBS
7 Feb 2006 - 12:00 AM  UPDATED 22 Aug 2013 - 12:18 PM

The latest list of names by the weekly tabloid L'Anecdote includes government ministers, newsreaders, popular singers and sports stars.

Homosexuality is illegal in Cameroon, along with many other African countries, with jail sentences of up to five years handed to offenders.

Newspaper editors say they are campaigning against those who engage in "deviant behaviour".

"Men making love to other men... is filthy," L'Anecdote publisher, Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga, told Reuters.

"It may be normal in the west but in Africa and Cameroon in particular, it's unthinkable," he said.

"We could not remain silent. We had to ring the alarm bell. We don't regret it and we have to do it again... in spite of numerous death threats that me and my journalists have had."

The campaign was launched in late January by the tabloid La Meteo, which published a three-page dossier of names.

It has sparked a national debate about gay rights and privacy.

One of those names is Communications Minister Pierre Moukoko, who is threatening to take legal action.

He told Reuters that the Cameroonian media risks breaking up families.

"Whether it is heterosexual or homosexual, sexual intercourse takes place in an intimate environment between two persons," he told media chiefs last month, according to a BBC report.

The campaign came after Roman Catholic archbishop Victor Tonye Bakot vehemently denounced homosexuality in December.

He criticised the European Union for giving legitimacy to gays as well as those calling for same sex marriages.

The newspapers largely repeated his comments.