News
Kenyan LGBT rights activist visits D.C.
Anti-LGBT violence remains pervasive in African nation
Eric Gitari of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission of Kenya, center, speaks at Global Rights in D.C. on Oct. 11, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
A leading Kenyan LGBT rights activist told the Washington Blade during a recent interview he feels his fellow advocates can learn a lot from their U.S. counterparts.
“They own their agenda and they drive it,” said Eric Gitari, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission of Kenya. “I want to draw lessons on how we can get more people to own this equality agenda.”
Gitari spoke with the Blade after he appeared on a panel with Pastor Joseph Tolton of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries at Global Rights in Northwest D.C. on Oct. 11. The activist also visited the Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Watch and spoke at the Howard University School of Law and Columbia University in New York before he left the U.S.
Kenya’s colonial government in 1897 adopted India’s penal code that included the criminalization of same-sex sexual relations.
Those convicted under the law could face up to 14 years in prison, but Gitari noted there has never been what he described as “a successful prosecution” under it. He said during the panel that a coalition of groups that hope to repeal the pre-independence statute hope to implement a strategy similar to that used by those who challenged India’s sodomy law – judges on the Delhi High Court in 2009 found the country’s colonial-era statute unconstitutional.
“They are using parallels from the New Delhi case in India to engage their strategies,” Gitari said.
Gitari also noted homophobia, transphobia and anti-LGBT discrimination and violence remain pervasive in Kenya in spite of a new constitution the country adopted in 2010 that acknowledges human rights, equality and other universal values.
He said “ex-gay” programs remain common in Kenyan schools, and students as early as fifth grade are taught homosexuality is a “social deviance” that is comparable to drug activity and criminality. Gitari further noted a 2012 secondary education certification exam asked high school students to give 10 reasons why Kenyan Christians are “united against homosexuals.”
“This law is informing a lot of public policy positions and attitudes,” he said.
A mob in Mtwapa near the coastal city of Mombasa in 2010 doused four gay men whom they thought were about to attend a same-sex wedding with kerosene.
“This was instigated by religious leaders; religious leaders to the present walk scot free,” Gitari said. “[They] have never, ever been investigated in spite of efforts to push for such an investigation for such hate crimes.”
Kenya is among the 76 countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain illegal. Sudan, Mauritania and a handful of other nations continue to impose the death penalty upon anyone found guilty of homosexuality.
Lawmakers in Uganda, which borders Kenya, have faced widespread criticism over a bill Parliamentarian David Bahati introduced in 2009 that sought to execute those convicted of repeated same-sex sexual acts.
President Obama in June spoke out against the criminalization of homosexuality during a press conference in Senegal, which is among the 38 African countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains illegal.
Gitari noted the majority of Kenyans respect Obama because the president’s father was born in the country, but they criticized him over the comments he made while in Senegal.
“There were attempts by people, by propaganda machines within the conservatives to rob him of his African identity,” Gitari said. “They see Obama as a player in the spreading of that Western agenda of homosexuality.”
Advocates look to courts to expand LGBT rights
Gitari and his group hope to use the courts to gain legal protections for LGBT Kenyans that include the eventual repeal of the country’s sodomy law.
A three-judge panel on the High Court of Kenya in 2010 refused to legally recognize Richard Muasya, an intersex person who suffered abuse inside a maximum security prison. Muasya received 500,000 Kenyan shillings (or nearly $5,900) for the mistreatment inside the facility, but the judges said they found no evidence of anti-LGBT discrimination and human rights violations in the country.
The Kenyan Human Rights Commission in 2011 published a report that documented anti-LGBT discrimination. The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights the following year released a second report that found widespread anti-LGBT discrimination in the country’s health care system.
The High Court of Kenya in June ruled in favor of a transgender woman who claimed police officers in a town outside of Nairobi, the country’s capital, stripped her naked in front of local reporters to determine her gender after they arrested her for assault in 2011. She also accused the officers of groping her breasts during the incident.
Gitari’s group also continues to seek formal recognition in the country.
“Our roadmap is informed by incremental litigation,” Gitari said.
Gitari traveled to D.C. less than a month after members of the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabab killed more than 60 people at a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The East Africa Center for Law and Justice, which the American Center for Law and Justice that anti-gay televangelist Pat Robertson founded in 1990, is among the groups that continue to pose significant barriers to LGBT-specific advances in Kenya. In spite of this resistance, Gitari told the Blade he has not seen any homophobic rhetoric as a result of last month’s attack.
“The good thing that has emerged from it is that Kenyans are beginning to see that teaching extremism and using religion to justify hatred is no longer the way,” Gitari said. “It’s costing innocent lives and it’s not rational in a civilized world anymore.”
Netherlands
Rob Jetten becomes first gay Dutch prime minister
38-year-old head of government sworn in on Monday
Rob Jetten on Monday became the Netherland’s first openly gay prime minister.
Jetten’s centrist D66 party won the country’s elections last October, narrowly defeating Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom.
King Willem-Alexander on Monday swore in Jetten, who is also the country’s youngest-ever prime minister. The Associated Press notes Jetten’s coalition government includes the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
“Proud to be able to do this together,” said Jetten in an X post before Willem-Alexander swore him in.
COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement said Jetten “becoming prime minister shows that your sexual orientation doesn’t have to matter.”
“You can become a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer, and even prime minister,” said COC Nederland.
The advocacy group noted Jetten has said his government will implement its “Rainbow Agreement” that include calls for strengthening nondiscrimination laws “to better protect transgender and intersex people,” appointing more “discrimination investigators … to address violence against LGBTQ+ people and other minorities,” and introducing measures “to promote acceptance in schools.”
“COC will hold the Cabinet to that promise,” said COC Nederland.
Jetten’s fiancé is Nicolás Keenen, an Argentine field hockey player who competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Jetten is one of two openly gay heads of government: Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora came out in 2023. Gay Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is the country’s head of state, took office in 2023.
Leo Varadkar, who was Ireland’s prime minister from 2017-2020 and from 2022-2024, and Xavier Bettel, who was Luxembourg’s prime minister from 2013-2023, are gay. Ana Brnabić, who was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024, is a lesbian.
Former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir in 2009 became the world’s first openly lesbian head of government. Former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal are also openly gay.
Colombian presidential candidate Claudia López, who is the former mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital, would become her country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins the country’s presidential election that is taking place later this year.
District of Columbia
D.C. police arrest man for burglary at gay bar Spark Social House
Suspect ID’d from images captured by Spark Social House security cameras
D.C. police on Feb. 18 arrested a 63-year-old man “of no fixed address” for allegedly stealing cash from the registers at the gay bar Spark Social House after unlawfully entering the bar at 2009 14th St., N.W., around 12:04 a.m. after it had closed for business, according to a police incident report.
“Later that day officers canvassing for the suspect located him nearby,” a separate police statement says. “63-year-old Tony Jones of no fixed address was arrested and charged with Burglary II,” the statement says.
The police incident report states that the bar’s owner, Nick Tsusaki, told police investigators that the bar’s security cameras captured the image of a man who has frequently visited the bar and was believed to be homeless.
“Once inside, the defendant was observed via the establishment’s security cameras opening the cash register, removing U.S. currency, and placing the currency into the left front pocket of his jacket,” the report says.
Tsusaki told the Washington Blade that he and Spark’s employees have allowed Jones to enter the bar many times since it opened last year to use the bathroom in a gesture of compassion knowing he was homeless. Tsusaki said he is not aware of Jones ever having purchased anything during his visits.
According to Tsusaki, Spark closed for business at around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident at which time an employee did not properly lock the front entrance door. He said no employees or customers were present when the security cameras show Jones entering Spark through the front door around 12:04 a.m.
Tsusaki said the security camera images show Jones had been inside Spark for about three hours on the night of the burglary and show him taking cash out of two cash registers. He took a total of $300, Tsusaki said.
When Tsusaki and Spark employees arrived at the bar later in the day and discovered the cash was missing from the registers they immediately called police, Tsusaki told the Blade. Knowing that Jones often hung out along the 2000 block of 14th Street where Spark is located, Tsusaki said he went outside to look for him and saw him across the street and pointed Jones out to police, who then placed him under arrest.
A police arrest affidavit filed in court states that at the time they arrested him police found the stolen cash inside the pocket of the jacket Jones was wearing. It says after taking him into police custody officers found a powdered substance in a Ziploc bag also in Jones’s possession that tested positive for cocaine, resulting in him being charged with cocaine possession in addition to the burglary charge.
D.C. Superior Court records show a judge ordered Jones held in preventive detention at a Feb. 19 presentment hearing. The judge then scheduled a preliminary hearing for the case on Feb. 20, the outcome of which couldn’t immediately be obtained.
District of Columbia
Judge rescinds order against activist in Capital Pride lawsuit
Darren Pasha accused of stalking organization staff, board members, volunteers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb.18 agreed to rescind his earlier ruling declaring local gay activist Darren Pasha in default for failing to attend a virtual court hearing regarding an anti-stalking lawsuit brought against him by the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events.
The Capital Pride lawsuit, initially filed on Oct. 27, 2025, accuses Pasha of engaging in a year-long “course of conduct” of “harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior” targeting Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
Judge Robert D. Okum nevertheless on Feb. 6 approved a temporary stay-away order requiring Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, volunteers, and board members until the time of a follow-up court hearing scheduled for April 17. He reduced the stay-away distance from 200 yards as requested by Capital Pride.
In his two-page order issued on Feb. 18, Okun stated that Pasha explained that he was involved in a scooter accident in which he was injured and his phone was damaged, preventing him from joining the Feb. 6 court hearing.
“Therefore, the court finds there is a good cause for vacating the default,” Okun states in his order.
At the time he initially approved the default order at the Feb. 6 hearing that Pasha didn’t attend, Okun scheduled an April 17 ex parte proof hearing in which Capital Pride could have requested a ruling in its favor seeking a permanent anti-stalking order against Pasha.
In his Feb. 18 ruling rescinding the default order Okun changed the April 17 ex parte proof hearing to an initial scheduling conference hearing in which a decision on the outcome of the case is not likely to happen.
In addition, he agreed to consider Pasha’s call for a jury trial and gave Capital Pride 14 days to contest that request. The Capital Pride lawsuit initially called for a non-jury trial by judge.
One request by Pasha that Okum denied was a call for him to order Capital Pride to stop its staff or volunteers from posting information about the lawsuit on social media. Pasha has said the D.C.-based online blog called DC Homos, which Pasha claims is operated by someone associated with Capital Pride, has been posting articles portraying him in a negative light and subjecting him to highly negative publicity.
“The defendant has not set forth a sufficient basis for the court to restrict the plaintiff’s social media postings, and the court therefore will deny the defendant’s request in his social media praecipe,” Okun states in his order.
A praecipe is a formal written document requesting action by a court.
Pasha called the order a positive development in his favor. He said he plans to file another motion with more information about what he calls the unfair and defamatory reports about him related to the lawsuit by DC Homos, with a call for the judge to reverse his decision not to order Capital Pride to stop social media postings about the lawsuit.
Pasha points to a video interview on the LGBTQ Team Rayceen broadcast, a link to which he sent to the Washington Blade, in which DC Homos operator Jose Romero acknowledged his association with Capital Pride Alliance.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking whether Romero was a volunteer or employee with Capital Pride.
Pasha also said he believes the latest order has the effect of rescinding the temporary stay away order against him approved by Okun in his earlier ruling, even though Okun makes no mention of the stay away order in his latest ruling. Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison told the Blade the stay away order “remains in full force and effect.”
Harrison said Capital Pride has no further comment on the lawsuit.
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