Burundi's President Calls for 'Stoning' Gays - 'That's What They Deserve'

Evariste Ndayishimiye, the president of Burundi, is calling for the people of his nation to go Old Testament on LGBTQ+ people, for no offense other than that they exist.

Speaking with the public and the press on Dec. 29, Ndayishimiye framed the issue of LGBTQ+ acceptance in metaphysical terms, suggesting that supernatural punishment would await any country that embraced non-heterosexual and non-cisgender people as human beings deserving of rights and recognition.

"If you want to attract a curse to the country, accept homosexuality," Ndayishimiye declared, according to a report by Reuters.

"I even think that these people, if we find them in Burundi, it is better to lead them to a stadium and stone them," Ndayishimiye added, according to Reuters. "And that cannot be a sin."

"That's what they deserve," he said.

The New York Times reported that while "Ndayishimiye's remarks do not have the force of law, they are an escalation of provocative statements directed at L.G.B.T.Q. people elsewhere by African government officials."

The Times further noted that Ndayishimiye's comments were made "amid a widening crackdown against L.G.B.T.Q. people in the East African nation that is adding to the anti-gay sentiments sweeping across the region and the wider African continent."

As with other countries in Africa that have targeted and scapegoated LGBTQ+ people, Ndayishimiye suggested that natural variation in human sexuality is somehow an invention of the West – a suggestion that carries the implication that there would be no LGBTQ+ African people if not for such an "importation" of non-heterosexual orientations.

The comments were also another example of rhetorical overkill. The Times noted that under existing law in Burundi, "consensual same-sex intimacy among adults can already be penalized with up to two years in prison."

But the trend of targeting sexual minorities for increasing crackdowns and legislative persecution continues to gain momentum on the African continent.

The Times recalled that a Kenyan lawmaker last year "introduced legislation that would impose punitive measures, including giving members of the public the power to arrest anyone they suspect of being gay."

Moreover, Tanzanian lawmakers "said they would prosecute anyone caught sharing pro-L.G.B.T.Q. content online," the Times recounted. "The police in Zambia arrested activists whom they have accused of promoting homosexuality," the article added. "And in Ghana, a bill in Parliament would criminalize identifying as queer and proposes jail time or the imposition of fines against those who have helped finance or protect sexual and gender minority rights."

The Times also recalled that in 2023, Uganda pressed forward with its long-gestating and controversial "kill the gays" law, which imposes the death penalty on the bizarre "offense" of "aggravated homosexuality" – a broadly defined category that includes having gay sex while being HIV-positive or disabled or allegedly "coercing" a sexual partner.

"After President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed the law, the United States announced visa restrictions for some Ugandan officials, and the World Bank withdrew all future financial assistance to Uganda," the Times recalled.

Ndayishimiye intimated that Western aid money is contingent on the country accepting LGBTQ+ people, the Times relayed, and declared that the West was welcome not to provide any such money, saying, "Let them keep it" – though it is hard to see how such a stance can be of any help to the people of Burundi.

"Small, densely populated and landlocked, Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world and receives aid and loans from the European Union, the United States and the International Monetary Fund," the Times noted.

Ndayishimiye's virulently homophobic rhetoric raised fears of vigilante violence targeting LGBTQ+ people. The Times heard from "a gay human rights activist in Burundi who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation," with the equality advocate airing "concern that the president's statement sets the stage for extrajudicial killings and 'worsens an already unsafe environment.'"

There's precedent in Africa for average people taking the words of a leader as permission to inflict violence on specified minorities.

"In the months leading up to and following the law's passage," the Times recalled about Uganda's "kill the gays" measure, "gay and transgender Ugandans said that they were harassed and beaten and evicted from their homes, and that some were forced to flee their country altogether."