Africa in Transition

South Africa has the most extensive legal protection of human rights of any country in Africa, and more than most other parts of the world. Those protections include gay rights. A recent episode provides an example of how the South African constitutional, judicial, and legal system works against discrimination and hate speech. It also demonstrates that there are boundaries to the use of religion as a defense against discriminatory language, even if the extent of such limits are still unknown.  Section nine of South Africa’s constitution guarantees equal rights to all South Africans and outlaws discrimination, including that based on ethnicity, gender, religion, as well as sexual preference. Pursuant to that provision, Parliament passed the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA) in 2000. In turn, PEPUDA led to the creation of Equality Courts to adjudicate infringements of equality such as unfair discrimination and hate speech. In 2013, the South Africa Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), an independent agency with jurisdiction derived from the constitution that monitors human rights complaints, laid a complaint before an Equality Court. It alleged that a pastor in Cape Town named Oscar Bougardt engaged in hate speech against the LGBT community. The case was ultimately resolved through arbitration. Under its terms, the pastor signed an agreement in which he acknowledged, among other things, that his words were “likely to encourage hatred and cause emotional, psychological and physical harm to members of this [gay and lesbian] community.” He promised to refrain from making such statements in the future.  Nevertheless, he continued to do so. For example, in 2015 following the report that the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria had executed nine men and a boy for homosexuality, Bougardt commented online that, “we need ISIS to come to countries that are homosexual friendly. ISIS please come rid South Africa of the homosexual curse.” In response, the SAHRC asked the Equality Court to hold Bougardt in contempt of court for violating the 2013 agreement. While Bougardt did not deny the statements attributed to him, he did deny having invited ISIS to come to South Africa or that he was encouraging violence against gays and lesbians. Instead, he claimed that he was expressing his constitutionally protected religious views. In May 2018, the Equality Court found that Bougardt violated the agreement he had signed in 2013 and that he had failed to show how freedom of religion protected his comments. When the Court began to consider an appropriate punishment, Bougardt promised to refrain from online comments about gays and lesbians, to apologize to gays and lesbians, and to end his relationship with an American pastor, Steven Anderson, known for his homophobic preaching. The judge ultimately sentenced Bougardt to thirty days of imprisonment, along with five years of suspension. Despite the case against Bougardt, the South African courts have not addressed the broader question of whether religious views can be a defense against charges of discrimination against LGBT persons. However, this Equality Court judgement sets a precedent, increasing the likelihood that such a claim will fail. 

Though Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala of Democratic Republic of Congo officially announced on June 12 that President Joseph Kabila would not stand for a controversial third term, this has not ended speculation that Kabila, whose term of office expired in 2016, will find a way to continue to stay in power. Shortly thereafter, in what will surely complicate the election, the International Criminal Court acquitted Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former Congolese vice president, an ex-warlord, and a fierce rival of Kabila. Before these announcements were made, I sat down with Comfort Ero, the Africa program director for International Crisis Group, to discuss a new Crisis Group report on the situation in Congo as the tentative December election date approaches. Our discussion focuses on technical issues facing election officials, challenges that the opposition faces, the role of international and regional actors, and President Kabila’s personal situation. You can listen to the podcast here.

According to various media outlets, a suicide bomb attack on June 16 in Damboa, Borno, left at least forty dead and an additional forty wounded. Observers suspect Boko Haram, but thus far, no group has claimed responsibility. The attack occurred on the same day that the Nigerian chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, publicly said that Boko Haram is no longer a threat and urged internally displaced persons to return home. According to the army, two-thousand internally displaced had already returned to their homes. The Damboa attack followed a familiar pattern. Two female suicide bombers detonated their explosives in two different Damboa neighborhoods as people were returning home after celebrating the end of Ramadan. After crowds gathered following the explosions, the perpetrators fired rocket-propelled grenades into their midst, increasing the number of casualties. What was also familiar about the attack was the confusion surrounding the number of victims. Officials initially said twenty were killed as residents said they counted thirty-eight bodies, and that at least forty more were injured. Officials later revised the number of those killed to forty-three. This incident has been the worst in Nigeria since May 1, when Boko Haram killed eighty-six people in a similar operation in the northeast. This episode demonstrates yet again that, despite official claims to the contrary, Boko Haram continues to have the capacity to wreak havoc in parts of northeast Nigeria. The use of rocket-propelled grenades indicate that the group still has access to relatively sophisticated weaponry. Indeed, the Nigerian army has launched another offensive against Boko Haram, Operation Last Hold. The country director of Solidarities International in Nigeria, a French non-governmental organization, noted that thousands more internally displaced persons, mostly women and children, have arrived in their camps since the operation began in May. The UN estimates that around 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes over the nine-year conflict against Boko Haram. The continued fighting in northeast Nigeria takes place against the backdrop of the run-up to national elections in February 2019. Incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari is running for re-election; in 2015, he campaigned successfully on a ticket of destroying Boko Haram and vigorously fighting corruption. Continued Boko Haram operations are bound to be an embarrassment; however, it is not clear that it will have significant electoral impact. For most of Nigeria, Borno state is far away and there is greater concern about the economy than terrorism. Nevertheless, there must be concern that the government push for the internally displaced to return home is not premature.  For more on Nigeria, Matthew Page and I provide an overview of its politics, history, and culture, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts in our new book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which will be published by Oxford University Press in July.