Two men being prosecuted for
having gay sex in Kenya lost their legal bid on
Thursday to challenge the authorities' right to
force suspects to have anal examinations, in a
ruling labelled "totally unacceptable" by
Amnesty International.
The two unnamed men who deny the gay sex
charges, said in their petition they had been
coerced into undergoing anal examinations by
security personnel and a public hospital in
Mombasa in February 2015.
They wanted the court to declare that the
forced examinations - which are used to try to
prove gay sex has taken place - amounted to
"degrading treatment" and a violation of human
rights.
But high court judge Matthew Emukule said on
Thursday there was sufficient justification
under Kenyan law to allow the intrusion into
the human body for the purpose of gathering
evidence to prove a sexually related crime.
"The petition has no merit and is dismissed,"
he said in his ruling in the Kenyan port of
Mombasa.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Kenya and many
other African countries. Rights groups have
regularly condemned both those laws and the
examinations.
Amnesty's regional director Muthoni Wanyeki
said the court ruling was unacceptable and
"also absurd as the government has no
business proving or disproving consensual
homosexual activity."
New York-based Human Rights Watch has said
the examinations might amount to torture
under international law.
On a visit to Kenya in July last year U.S.
President Barack Obama equated
discrimination against gays to treating people
differently because of race, adding: "That's the
path whereby freedoms begin to erode."
The two men's trial for having gay sex is
ongoing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment