Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMay 30th, 2010
Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, whose 14-year jail terms for “gross indecency and unnatural acts” were overturned by a pardon from Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, have been released from prison and were sent separately to their respective homes, the BBC reports. But a government minister warned that they could be re-arrested if they continued their relationship.
Patricia Kaliati, Malawi’s Minister of Gender and Children, said Monjeza and Chimbalanga’s release did not mean they could continue their relationship. “It doesn’t mean that now they are free people, they can keep doing whatever you keep doing,” she said.
Ms Kaliati said they could be rearrested if they “continue doing that”.
The couple’s lawyer, Mauya Msuks confirmed the threat:
“The pardon only applies to the offence under which they were convicted. If, for example, they go back and the state is of the view that they have recommited the offence, the pardon will not apply,” said Mauya Msuku.
President Mutharika pardoned the couple following a meeting with U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who was in Malawi to speak before Parliament members in their brand new Chinese-built Parliament building. During his address to Parliament, Ban commended Mutharika’s actions as “courageous” and called on Parliament to rescind the country’s anti-homosexuality laws:
“It is unfortunate that laws that criminalize people on the basis of their sexual orientation exist in some countries. They should be reformed,” he underlined.
He expressed the hope that Parliament “will take appropriate steps to update laws discriminating based on sexual orientation in line with international standards.”
The couple’s release was hailed by international human rights advocates and by the goverments of the United States and Britain. But reaction inside Malawi was decidedly more mixed. A Nyasa Times editorial today said that in the end, Steven and Tiwonge still be judged harshly. Citing President Mutharika’s statement that “I have done this on humanitarian grounds but this does not mean that I support this,” the editors write:
We at the Nyasa Times are happy because his statement resonates very well with respected thinker Friedrich Nietzsche who once observed that “If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.” In essence what the president has said is that he has forgiven the gay couple but he will not forget their legal wrongs.
…With the moneyed people in this globe we live in, they have their way; and we have our way, but somehow somewhere money talks. Sadly, as for the right way, the correct way and the only way, it does not exist. Pressure or not under pressure, the President has done the right thing to pardon the gay couple.
After all, if Malawi is a God-fearing nation, then it subscribes to the teachings of the Bible which contends that the two will have to give their account to their Creator on why they behaved they way they have on the Day of Reckoning. It is not for us to Judge.
“It is not for us to judge” was, in a nutshell, Pontius Pilate’s lame excuse. And so it has been true ever since: whenever you hear someone say “it is not for us to judge,” you can count on their already having judged and condemned, and are now just trying to wash their hands of it.
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Mark
May 30th, 2010
I hope that Steven and Tiwonge are somewhere safe after having been released from prison. Sadly, their lives will be difficult if not impossible in Malawi. Thank you in advance to the country that will grant them political asylum. Thank you also, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who spoke to the Malawian parliament and urged them to repeal these colonial sodomy laws. Thank you for speaking up on behalf of this couple when you had the opportunity to do so — it shows that the international human rights system promoted by the United Nations is one that respects all persons.
RWG
May 30th, 2010
They need to get out of the country quickly!
Tone
May 30th, 2010
EMIGRATE! Leave the country without delay if they can. We’d love to have you here in Canada. You can get married here even.
Sokari
May 31st, 2010
Another perspective on this decision :
Laws that criminalise same sex intimacy are making a mockery of our democracies.
http://bit.ly/doKaZi
F Young
June 2nd, 2010
Here’s another “married” couple in trouble, in Pakistan:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/02/pakistan.gay.marriage/?hpt=T2
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