In a letter to their Senegalese counterparts, Hon. Anne Van Lancker, MEP and EPF President, Senator Alain Desthexhe, President of the Belgian Parliamentary Group on the MDGs, Hon. Françoise Castex, MEP and Hon. Sophie In’t Veld, MEP voiced concern about the recent sentencing of nine Senegalese homosexuals to eight years imprisonment by a Senegalese court. The nine men who were involved in HIV-prevention work were arrested in December 2008 for violating article 319.3 of Senegalese criminal code which provides that “whoever commits an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years”. The sentences, pronounced on 7 January 2009 followed a series of arrests and judgments which took place in 2008 and build on a consistent background of increased hostility, harassment and discrimination towards homosexuals in Senegal.

EPF’s member groups from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands called on members of the Senegalese Parliamentary Network on Population and Development to mobilise parliamentary colleagues as well as Senegalese authorities to speak out against discrimination, particularly against the criminalisation of consensual sexual conduct between same-sex couple as well as combating the incitement to hostility and violence against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation or their gender. In addition, European Parliamentarians offered their full support to the Senegalese Parliamentary Network on Population and Development in their efforts to fight for the respect of minority rights and against discrimination. Grateful for the European parliamentary support, the President of the Senegalese Parliamentary Network on Population and Development, Hon. Elhadji Malick Diop, MP replied that a copy of this letter was sent to the President of the Senegalese National Assembly as well as the President of the Committee for Legal Affairs. In addition, the Coordinator of the National Committee to fight HIV/AIDS was informed about the letter. Having undertaken key follow-up actions at the highest level, Hon. Diop was confident that a positive solution would be found to this disturbing issue.