Day: November 28, 2021

JERUSALEM — Israel’s government on Sunday approved the immigration of several thousand Jews from war-torn Ethiopia, some of whom have waited for decades to join their relatives in Israel.

The decision took a step toward resolving an issue that has long complicated the government’s relations with the country’s Ethiopian community.

Some 140,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel. Community leaders estimate that roughly 6,000 others remain behind in Ethiopia.

Although the families are of Jewish descent and many are practicing Jews, Israel does not consider them Jewish under religious law. Instead, they have been fighting to enter the country under a family-unification program that requires special government approval.

Community activists have accused the government of dragging its feet in implementing a 2015 decision to bring all remaining Ethiopians of Jewish lineage to Israel within five years.

Under Sunday’s decision, an estimated 3,000 people will be eligible to move to Israel. They include parents, children and siblings of relatives already in Israel, as well as orphans whose parents were in Israel when they died.

“Today we are correcting an ongoing injustice,” said Pnina Tamano Shata, the country’s minister for immigration and herself an Ethiopian immigrant. She said the program was a response to people who have waited “too many years to come to Israel with their families” and to resolve a “painful issue.”

In a joint statement with Israel’s interior minister, she said the decision came in part as a response to the precarious security situation in Ethiopia, where tens of thousands of people have been killed over the past year in fighting between the government and Tigray forces.

It was not immediately clear when the airlift would begin. The government appointed a special project coordinator to oversee the effort.

Kasaw Shiferaw, chairman of the group Activists for the Immigration of Ethiopian Jews, welcomed Sunday’s decision but said there was still a long way to go.

“On one hand, this decision makes me happy. Three thousand people are realizing a dream and uniting with their families,” he said.

“But it’s not a final resolution. Thousands are still waiting in camps, some for more than 25 years. We expect the government to bring all of them,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

YAOUNDÉ — Cameroon says lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are increasingly becoming victims of violence and brutality. The central African state’s government made the comment this week after Human Rights Watch reported degrading treatment of LGBTI people and called on Cameroon to hold perpetrators accountable.

About 15 people are shouting and beating a person they claim is homosexual. In the video widely circulated on social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube, the mob forces the naked person out of a room, pulling their legs apart and saying the person is a man dressed and behaving like a woman.

Human Rights Watch said in a November 20 dispatch that the video is that of a violent mob humiliating a 27-year-old intersex person in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.

Paul Abbo said he witnessed the assault on the intersex person. Abbo said he hopes the humiliation of the individual will dissuade homosexuals and lesbians from what he said is a practice that does not honor Africa.

“I learn that in Gabon the Senate and the Assembly adopted the law for homosexuality or lesbianism, but in Cameroon we know that a family has a man and a woman not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. The man is the head, the woman is a subordinate to the husband, and they merge to form a family.” said Abbo.

Abbo said he was surprised when lawmakers in Gabon’s Parliament voted to decriminalize homosexuality in June 2020.

Rights groups say Gabon is one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to remove a law that punishes sexual relations between people of the same sex.

Human Rights Watch central Africa researcher Ilaria Allegrozzi said the perpetrators of the Yaoundé abuse filmed the attack, which lasted for several hours.

This week Cameroon said attacks on lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are increasing in the central African state.

Rene Sadi is communications minister and government spokesperson. He said although gay sex and practices are illegal in Cameroon, no one has the right to abuse a suspect.

“Homosexuality, it must be reiterated, remains a sexual orientation that is suppressed by our laws because it is contrary to our realities, our convictions and our culture as well as to the requirements of procreation. But for all that, it is not up to each and every one of us to take the place of justice in punishing those who might be found guilty of homosexuality. It is an insult, an assault which is also punishable by law,” he said.

Sadi said only Cameroon law has the right to establish and punish lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex offenses.

Cameroon has not given further details on how many LGBTI people have been attacked.

However, Human Rights Watch said in a report in April that LGBTQ people are suffering a fresh wave of persecution in Cameroon, where same-sex relations are illegal.

The group said police in February detained 12 youths in the eastern town of Bertoua for homosexuality, beat them and locked them in a police station. Police in Douala, a commercial city, detained Loic Njeukam, known as Shakiro, and Roland Mouth in February for wearing women’s clothing while eating at a restaurant.

Cameroon law prohibits sexual relations with a person of the same sex with a penalty of between six months to five years imprisonment.

Rights groups say Cameroon’s police tend to target public gatherings of LGBTQ people. Human Dignity Trust, a group that defends the rights of LGBTI people, reports that there is an uptick in police action against LGBT in Cameroon. It says at least 24 people have been arrested, beaten, or threatened by security forces for alleged consensual same-sex conduct or gender nonconformity since February.

Source: Voice of America