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U.S. denounces arrest of LGBT activists in Zimbabwe
The State Department on Aug. 23 denounced two anti-LGBT raids and the arrest of 44 LGBT civil rights activists in Zimbabwe.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in prepared remarks, “The United States condemns the Government of Zimbabwe’s violent arrest and detention of 44 members of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe on Aug. 11 and a second raid by police on Aug. 20. Several of these members sustained serious medical injuries from the attacks and were detained without charges. The government of Zimbabwe has also targeted these same members’ homes and singled out their families for interrogation and harassment.”
Nuland also said, “The United States stands in solidarity with Zimbabwe’s civil society, including LGBT activists. We are deeply concerned when security forces become an instrument of political violence used against citizens exercising their democratic rights.”
The U.S. is calling on the government of Zimbabwe to “end this pattern of abuse and to eradicate the culture of impunity that allows members of the security sector to continue to violate the rights of the Zimbabwean people,” Nuland concluded.
