MUGABE SLAMS SOUTH AFRICA OVER GAY RIGHTS

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has continued to attack gays ahead of the country’s elections, this time targeting South Africa’s support for gay rights and also threatening to decapitate gay men.

Speaking at an election rally in Mutare, he condemned the neighbouring country for giving gays and lesbians equal rights under the law, reported Business Day.

“We are unlike South Africa, which upholds gay rights. We will deal with them here. Gay rights are not human rights,” ranted Mugabe.

“I am despised in some parts of the world because I said gays and lesbians are worse than pigs and dogs because these animals know their mates. We cannot allow our children to be worse than wild animals.”

According to NewsDay, the 89-year-old despot also said: “If you take men and lock them in a house for five years and tell them to come up with two children and they fail to do that, then we will chop off their heads.”

“We need continuity of our culture. This culture comes from the norm that women carry pregnancies for nine months. If there is anyone who disputes that, he should lift up his hands to say no I fell from heaven,” Mugabe went on to say.

Chesterfield Samba, director of Gay and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), recently said that “it has become customary for the President to attempt to whip up a climate of hysterical homophobia against LGBTI people before, during and after elections”.

He added that the LGBTI community was “once again being used as a red herring for the real woes in this country around good governance”.

Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe. It remains to be seen if the courts will rule on whether this is now in conflict with the country’s new constitution, which was recently adopted.

While the constitution specifically bars gay marriage, it otherwise asserts the equal rights of all Zimbabweans.