the first olympic event ever held in africa opens in 12 days, in a country that just doubled the prison sentence for being gay.

via Human Rights Watch, Reuters and MambaOnline

On Oct. 31, Dakar opens the Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event ever staged in Africa. The Olympic Charter, Human Rights Watch notes, prohibits discrimination on any grounds. Senegal's penal code, as of March, says two consenting adults of the same sex can go to prison for up to 10 years.

HRW put those two facts side by side in a report on Oct. 12, and they do not sit comfortably. The Games run to Nov. 13, per MambaOnline.

what the new law does

On March 11, Senegal's National Assembly voted 135 to 0, with three abstentions, to double the maximum sentence for same-sex sexual acts to 10 years and to criminalize "any efforts to promote homosexuality," Reuters reported. It fulfilled a campaign promise of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, whose government took power in 2024. MambaOnline reports the promotion offense carries up to seven years.

what the arrests look like

HRW says it could not independently verify the total, but cites the Senegalese rights group RADDHO's count of at least 212 people arrested between February and July. Of those arrested, 82 were also charged with "voluntary HIV transmission," charges a court dismissed in August. HRW, which interviewed 39 people in Senegal in May, documented allegations of HIV testing without consent, people pressured to give up their right to a lawyer, and lawyers too afraid to take the cases. MambaOnline relays a Dakar doctor's estimate that a third of patients had stopped coming in for HIV treatment.

One of HRW's interviewees, a university student in Dakar it calls Sall, has barely left his room since February.

"LGBT people are being forced to curb their normal activities and to keep from exercising their rights for fear of arrest and increased stigma," said Larissa Kojoué, HRW's LGBT rights researcher. "Senegal's government should call a halt to this crackdown, which threatens everyone's rights."

Nothing we found shows the International Olympic Committee answering any of it. Somebody hand out the charter at the door.