Evariste Ndayishimiye, the president of Burundi, called for violence against gays during a Friday press conference, claiming that homosexuality bring “a curse” upon any nation that tolerates it.
“If you want to attract a curse to the country, accept homosexuality,” Ndayishimiye told reporters during a question and answer session, Reuters reported. (RELATED: Somebody Made A Palestine Pride Flag, And It’s Literally Painful To Look At)
“I even think that these people, if we find them in Burundi, it is better to lead them to a stadium and stone them. And that cannot be a sin,” Ndayishimiye added, according to the outlet. Ndayishimiye has been president of Burundi since 2020 and has been described as a “devout Catholic.”
Burundi is a small landlocked country in east-central Africa that borders Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Homosexuality has been criminalized in the country since 2009, according to LGBT rights tracker Equaldex. Engaging in same-sex activity carries a jail sentence of up to a two years, The Hill noted.
A survey conducted in 2014 and 2015 found that just 10 percent of Burundians expressed positive or ambivalent feelings at the idea of having a homosexual neighbor.
Burundi’s president says gay people should be stoned https://t.co/xbyvyNlzGN
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Ndayishimiye mentioned in his speech that legal acceptance of homosexuality was being imported from the West and that local African values were hostile to the idea, Reuters noted. One Burundi gay rights activist told The New York Times that the president’s speech “worsens an already unsafe environment” for homosexuals in the country.
Burundi is not an outlier in its hostility to homosexuality. Over half of African countries outlaw consensual homosexual sex, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, Reuters noted.
Uganda, for instance, passed a law in May imposing the death sentence for transmitting HIV through homosexual activity and lengthy jail sentences for other same-sex offenses, the outlet reported.
The United States imposed visa restrictions on Uganda in protest to this policy, Reuters noted.
Three other African states also have the death penalty on the books for homosexuality, according to the outlet.