Senegal charges 71 men in homosexuality crackdown

Senegal has charged 71 men with "unnatural acts" as authorities intensify a crackdown on homosexuality, the public prosecutor's office said late Friday.

The men were brought before a court, while charges against 28 other defendants were dropped, according to the prosecutor's office.

The office said the charges followed a preliminary investigation. It said charges of "endangering the lives of others" and "wilful transmission of HIV/AIDS" were dismissed.

Prosecutor Saliou Dicko told AFP on Saturday that a French national, an engineer in his thirties living in Dakar who had been detained since February for "unnatural acts", had also had the charges against him dropped. The public prosecutor's office has appealed that decision.

Senegal passed a law in March doubling penalties for homosexual relations, which are now punishable by five to ten years in jail. In recent months, more than 100 people, including some local celebrities, have been arrested on suspicion of homosexual acts and in some cases of deliberately transmitting HIV.