Virginia Evelyn Palmer, the United States Ambassador to Ghana, has reacted to the passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2021.
Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday February 28, 2024 passed the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values also known as the anti-LGBTQI+ bill.
The Bill seeks to unequivocally criminalise LGBTQI+ activities.
Persons caught in the act would be subjected to 6 months to 3 year jail term with promoters and sponsors of the act bearing a 3 to 5 year jail term.
The bill also proposes that a person who, by use of media, technological platform, technological account or any other means, produces, procures, markets, broadcasts, disseminates, publishes or distributes a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, or a person uses an electronic device, the Internet service, a film, or any other device capable of electronic storage or transmission to produce, procure, market, broadcast, disseminate, publishes or distribute a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than ten years.
The sponsors of the bill made a move for the bill to be given additional consideration before it was passed.
The principal proponent, Samuel Nartey George, suggested that the 1992 constitution’s article 12—which guarantees media freedom—be applied to the anti-LGBT articles 10 and 11, which deal with the editorial practices of media companies.
The amendments of the bill were approved by the House as part of the bill today February 28, 2024.
The passage of the bill came a day after the Big 18 and the Human Rights Coalition called on the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo not to assent to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2021.
Reacting to the bill in a post on X, Virginia Evelyn Palmer stated that the bill takes away not only their basic human rights but those of all Ghanaians because it undermines their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press
“I am saddened because some of the smartest, most creative, most decent people I know are LGBT. The bill Parliament passed takes away not only their basic human rights but those of all Ghanaians because it undermines their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. It will be bad for public order and public health. If enacted, it will also hurt Ghana’s international reputation and Ghana’s economy,” Virginia Evelyn Palmer’s post on X read.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Vivian Adu
