Pair jailed for attack on gay men in ‘encouraging’ moment for Kenya’s queer community

Two people have been sentenced to jail time for attacking and robbing two gay men in Kenya, a ruling that has been hailed as a breakthrough moment for queer people in the east African nation.

The convicted individuals, known as Abel Meli & Another, were handed a 15-year prison sentence for robbery with violence at Milimani law courts in Nairobi on 3 March.

The victims in the case were two men, both in their mid-20s, who experienced hours of violence after they met up with a man they had been speaking to on Facebook.

After they arrived at the man’s home, three other men arrived at the property and the victims were beaten, with their phones, wallets and clothes were taken.

During the attack, the men were made to call family and friends to get them to transfer as much money as possible to the blackmailers’ accounts. They were threatened with being outed to their families and killed if they did not comply.

“I tried to resist and I wanted to fight back,” one of the victims – named as Anyango – told The Guardian. “That’s when one of them took a knife, held it at me and said: ‘If you don’t cooperate now, I will stab you and throw you out the window.’”

In the end, 100,000 Kenyan shillings (£576) was sen to the blackmailers’ accounts by friends and family of the victims.

After the incident, the men were supported in reporting the matter to the police and subsequently the attackers were arrested.

Also speaking to the outlet, a paralegal from Ishtar – an organisation providing health and wellbeing services to gay men – who went with the victims to the police said how when LGBTQ+ people go to the police they are often “harassed and discriminated against”.

“They tell you that you are not a normal citizen and they throw away your case,” they admitted.

Kenya is not a friendly country to members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The east African nation is one of 31 countries in Africa which still criminalise homosexuality, with consensual same-sex acts in the country being punishable by up to 21 years in prison with hard labor and fines.

More widely, LGBTQ+ rights are thin on the ground in the country with censorship of LGBTQ+ topics state enforced, access to gender-affirming care is often denied by doctors and no protections from discrimination in housing or employment contexts.

Njeri Gateru, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission – which supports LGBTQ+ people in Kenya – said the attackers were part of a larger criminal organisation which prey on queer men across Kenya.

She told The Guardian: “There’s always that fear of self-incrimination. If I say that I met with a man on Grindr and I was hoping to engage in a romantic or an intimate relationship with this man, then obviously I’m evidence against myself. So the blackmailers rely on that.

“They also rely on the pervasive homophobia and homophobic attitudes within public institutions and also within the general public. And so this creates a situation that makes it possible for them to operate with quite a bit of impunity.”

“We had so many files against them,” Gateru said of the group. “We’ve had cases where these two men were arrested for other cases and later released.

“This can now serve as a deterrent to other gang members who have seen that the law has finally caught up.”

Gateru noted the queer community in the country faces great prejudice but “some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us”.

The second victim in the case, named as Ochieng, said he has been “emotionally and physically damaged” by the ordeal.

However, they urged others who experience similar attacks to come forward and seek justice.