r/UnderReportedNews 13d ago

LGBTQ+ 🏳️‍🌈 ‘Witch-hunt’ in Niger as military regime rounds up LGBTQ+ population

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/01/witch-hunt-in-niger-as-military-regime-rounds-up-lgbtq-population
273 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

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110

u/Severus-Snape-DaGod 13d ago

That country is moving backwards. By criminalizing LGBTQ people, it's undermining its own public health goals. When organizations and public health workers become afraid to provide PrEP, condoms, HIV testing, and education, prevention efforts are driven underground and people become less likely to seek care. You don't reduce HIV transmission by creating fear around prevention services.

129

u/bumpy_disposition 13d ago

I don't know in this particular instance, but US christian churches frequently do missionary work in Africa, denouncing homosexuality as a crime against god. A person gets into power, helped by their religious fanatasism, and then the government starts killing its people based on a religion that they have adopted. Christianity is inadvertantly, but actively murdering people in other countries.

This is highly documented, and there are cases pending. But the media covers it up.

33

u/According-Path5158 13d ago

Well, the blowback from this happening always ends up with Christians being executed and then they play the victim, acting like they don't know why this is happening.

Sooo...FAFO, I guess 

35

u/cantantantelope 13d ago

It’s not inadvertent. The missionaries very much have this as an active goal.

15

u/Kailynna 13d ago

They want to create precedents, to force wider acceptance of "Christian" lynching and legal death penalties for anyone not conventionally cis. .

10

u/SummertimeThrowaway2 13d ago

The crazy part is that homophobia only comes from one line in the Bible and experts argue that it was probably a mistranslation originally about pedophillia, not homosexuality.

A lot of homophobes don’t even know what the line is yet they still hate gay people.

5

u/Johnny_Poppyseed 13d ago

Jesus Christ even told them to forget all that old shit too. 

3

u/Successful-Bar-8173 13d ago

(Not an exact quote)

2

u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 11d ago

"Verily I say unto you, fuck all that dumb shit"

3

u/eileen404 12d ago

They forget their poly cotton shirt is prohibited in the same section of rules.

1

u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 11d ago

"Well, uhh, that's....that's just, we don't, that's old, it was another time."

2

u/Stereotype_Apostate 12d ago

This is true in a lot of Africa, but Africa is a big and diverse continent. Niger is 98% Muslim so in this case no, I don't think it's American evangelicals. They're more active in the southern half of the continent in places like Uganda.

19

u/MarkusVreeland 13d ago

This is why I will not accept in any way shape or form when people say that being LGBTQ+ is a sin. I believe it supports the collective impunity people have for harming people. It’s barbaric and perpetrators think that God is co-signing their bullsh$t.

5

u/Chihuahuatriomom 13d ago

Surprised chump hasn't done this even though he is gay.

4

u/SimonPho3nix 13d ago

These things are all the same. The need to punch down and find some internal enemy is the only thing that sustains them, until there's no one left but themselves. That's when the purity purge starts.

9

u/sometimesifeellikemu 13d ago

How can we respect other peoples and cultures when they make it so difficult?

19

u/AlexSmithsonian 13d ago

Never tolerate the intolerant.

0

u/Successful-Bar-8173 13d ago

Surprised they haven’t blamed colonialism yet