Anti-gay Civil Societies, Religious groups and local government officials accused Rainbow-Ethiopia HIV and Social Support Services as Foreign Agent Promoting Homosexuality in Ethiopia.

Anti-gay Civil Societies, Religious groups and local government officials accused Rainbow-Ethiopia HIV and Social Support Services and urged the government to take strong and restrictive legal measures against foreign agents like Rainbow-Ethiopia.

Last week, local Addis Ababa city government officials, religious leaders, United for Life Ethiopia (the leading homophobic Evangelical organization) and Several Youth Associations accused Rainbow-Ethiopia  as a foreign agent to the spread homosexuality at an alarming rate in the country, and they jointly urged  the Federal government to take strong legal measures against foreign agents like Rainbow-Ethiopia HIV and Social Support Services ‘to stop the spread of homosexuality and save the next generation from the western imported epidemic of homosexuality.’

The conference was organized by Kirkos Sub-City Department of Culture and Tourism , Kirkos Sub city Youth Association and United for Life Ethiopia which held at Genet hotel to discuss the about how to stop the fast and wide spread of homosexuality by fighting the foreign agents like Rainbow-Ethiopia and  It was  attended by more than 2000 participants including government officials, religious institutions, civil society representatives, prominent public figures, and community leaders.

 

Dr. Seyoum Antonios, the head of United For Life Ethiopia who is known for his speech “Africa will become a graveyard for homosexuality!” told to Deutsche Welle /Voice of Germany – Amharic Radio Program, ‘local LGBTI advocacy groups like Rainbow-Ethiopia  and the growing of sex tourism in the country are the major factors for importing and spreading homosexuality in the country.”

On January 1^st 2013, Campus Crusade for Christ sponsored an evangelism conference in Lagos, Nigeria on the theme of ‘a new generation for a new Africa’ for more than 300 students and young professionals from all over the continent. At the event, Dr. Seyoum Antonios, the head of United for Life Ethiopia, incited the crowd to a frenzy, shouting multiple times that “Africa will become a graveyard for homosexuality!”

Dr. Seyoum Antonios is currently leading an effort to institute a death penalty for homosexuality in Ethiopia, one of the guys who lead the conference and introduced Dr. Seyoum was another Ethiopian Bekele Shanko, who is the vice president of global church movements for campus crusade for Christ. They invited Dr. Seyoum to speak even though it was widely known that he led a movement to legislate the death penalty for LGBT people in Ethiopia. Campus Crusade for Christ has an annual budget of over $500 million dollars per year, and it is one of the biggest Evangelical ministries on earth.

In early July , anti-gay documentary titled ‘Sodomy in ‎Ethiopia, the Satanic Work of 666′ was released on 30th of June at Churchill International Hotel in Addis Ababa. The documentary was produced by a religious group called ‘Father TK association: Speak out about homosexuality in Ethiopia’ and was attended by hundreds of religious leaders of all denominations, patriots, artists, athletes, and other prominent guests and decided equivocally to continue sensitizing about the growing trend of western imported culture of homosexuality and child molestation using a series of documentary, art works and the media, to establish a national civil society coalition which can coordinate their  anti-homosexuality and homosexuals awareness and lobbying programs to propose to the government to pass a tough ant-gay bill like the one in Nigeria.

In May, a workshop was held by the same group which revolved around the discussion of the “disastrous” and “evil” consequences homosexuality has on the country at . Anti-gay evangelical groups, the United for Life Ethiopia (ULE) and Ethiopian Inter-Religious Council Against Homosexuality (EICAH) sponsored the workshops and have been very vocal about their opposition to homosexuality. A representative from EICAH said that passing a law resulting in the death penalty for gay people “looks promising.” It was attended by government officials, religious leaders, health professionals, charities and members of the public. “Participants agreed that the Western gay motto ‘born this way’ is unacceptable to Ethiopia, stating that not only has homosexuality nothing to do with nature, but the ‘condition’ runs against it.” , the EICAH representative stated that the council is ‘making progress’ in convincing the government to be stricter on homosexuality and introduce the death penalty to punish ‘such acts’.

United for Life Ethiopia, is a local representative of the Western Evangelical fundamentalist Christian organization which receives funding from the UK and the US held a workshop to discuss the social “evils” and “disastrous” effects of homosexuality in the country.

The conference got media attention and publicity from Deutsche Welle /German Amharic Radio Program, Addis Admas News paper and several other local electronic and print media are publishing sensationalized and provocative articles following the conference, Rainbow-Ethiopia HIV and Social Support Services strongly denounces this hateful conference and believes that organizing such conferences and publishing and producing these kind of provocative and hate based news and documentary film only fuels the already existent widespread homophobia, inciting violence against the LGBT community.

Related articles

• Ethiopia paper warns a ‘satanic’ gay ‘disease’ is spreading (rainbowethiopia1.wordpress.com)
• The Consequence of Exodus International Homophobic Mission in Ethiopia (rainbowethiopia1.wordpress.com)
• Rise of ‎homophobia in ‎Ethiopia: Anti-gay Civil Society coalition and media urges the government to impose tough anti ‎gay laws like Nigeria. (rainbowethiopia1.wordpress.com)