Leaders from Africa make a strong demand to the UN to suspend newly appointed LGBT expert

Leaders in the African continent have made a strong demand to the United Nations (UN) to immediately suspend the appointment of a new UN expert on LGBT rights, stressing that his mission to report on anti-gay violence had nothing to do with human rights.

The appointment of Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand was made by the UN Human Rights Council in late September. Vitit is an international law professor who is appointed to examine abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people globally.

The president of Botswana who spoke on behalf of the African continent to the UN General Assembly Committee that it was not necessary nor important for the council to start looking into “sexual orientation and gender identity”.

“We wish to state that those two notions are not and should not be linked to existing international human rights instruments,” said Charles Ntwaagae.

It was learnt that the 54-country African Group offered a draft UN resolution requesting for proper discussions on the lawfulness of the new expert’s specialists obligation saying that such appointment should be suspended for now.

The measure is expected to come up for a vote on Tuesday.

“We therefore call for the suspension of the activities of the appointed independent expert pending the determination of this issue,” said Ntwaagae.

Currently, about 73 nations, which is made up of 40% of all UN member states still prohibit in strong terms the homosexuality. In Africa alone, 33 countries have anti-gay laws including Uganda, Nigeria, Sudan and Mauritania.