A prominent LGBTQ activist in Cameroon is facing terrorism charges.

Alice Nkom, a human rights lawyer and board president of Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale, a group known by the acronym Redhac that translates to Human Rights Defenders Network in Central Africa, on Jan. 2 received a summons from Cameroon’s National Gendarmerie, or national military intelligence.

The summons follows a complaint that Lilian Engoulou, general coordinator of the Observatory for Societal Development, filed.

Engoulou has accused Nkom of attempting to endanger state security, financing terrorism, and funding separatist groups in the northwest and southwest regions of the country that are fighting for independence from Cameroon.

Nkom in recent months has been vocal over the human rights situation in the country, including LGBTQ rights.

Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji last month suspended Redhac and sealed the organization’s offices for alleged illegal and exorbitant funding and lack of compliance with government regulations on how NGOs should be run.

Nkom, however, removed the seals. This action prompted authorities in Littoral province where Redhoc’s offices are located to issue the summons on Dec. 19 after she did not appear.

Nkom has described the summons as a political witch hunt, stating she doesn’t acknowledge the Observatory for Societal Development. Nkom added she broke the seals because authorities placed them illegally.

“At the beginning of the year, a new summons, this time issued by the police, at the request of the military court, with accusations of financing terrorism, following the complaint of an association that I ignore from its existence, its leaders, or even the date of its creation,” she said.

“Human rights defenders are small, fragile but courageous, against the authoritarian and totalitarian drift of a state,” added Nkom. “Like the dikes facing the rising tide of injustice, they stand there firm, despite their vulnerability. I am an advocate, a human rights defender, a humanist. Humanity cannot be divided into categories. We are one, all connected by the same dignity.”

Maurice Kamto, a fierce critic of President Paul Biya who is a lawyer and leads the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement political party, said Nkom should not face judicial and political harassment. Kamto offered to represent her pro bono.

“She is an eminent figure in the public life of our country,” said Kamto. “She is fighting many battles. We do not share all these battles, and it is not all her battles that are at issue today.”

Kamto further described Nkom as “an important voice in the public arena of our country.”

“It is therefore, unacceptable that she should be the object of the judicial and political harassment that the authorities are currently inflicting on her,” said Kamto. “We cannot stand by and watch this happen.”

Consensual same-sex sexual relations are criminalized under Section 347 of Cameroon’s penal code with up to five years in prison. A 2010 law states whoever uses electronic communication devices to make “a sexual proposal to a person of the same sex” faces up to two years in prison.

A number of Cameroonians in recent years have been arrested — and tortured — for engaging in same-sex sexual relations.

A Human Rights Watch report notes Cameroonian security forces between February and April 2021 arrested at least 27 people, including a child, for alleged consensual same-sex conduct or gender nonconformity. Some of those arrested were beaten.

Biya’s daughter, Brenda Biya, last year posted an image to her Instagram page of her kissing her ex-girlfriend, Layyons Valença, and saying her wish was for them to live in peace as a couple. Brenda Biya deleted the post after it sparked controversy in Cameroon.

Nkom is expected to appear before the National Gendarmerie on Jan. 14, which is also her 80th Birthday.

A court in Comoros on Dec. 12 sentenced two lesbian women to five and six months in prison respectively after it found them guilty of homosexuality.

Authorities arrested the young couple in June on allegations they engaged in same-sex sexual relations and asked an imam to marry them. The women had been in custody since their arrest, which prompted the judge to release them with time served.

Human Dignity Trust, an international human rights organization, described the couple’s conviction as a violation of human rights.

“The conviction of the lesbian couple calls for increased vigilance,” said the group. “The mere existence of this provision is itself a violation of human rights and underpins further acts of discrimination.”

Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, a researcher at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, said LGBTQ people are being used as scapegoats for the current social and economic ills.

“LGBT people remain some of the most targeted and vulnerable people,” she said. “They have been branded as social pariahs and scapegoated for the economic, political, and social ills.”

Article 318 of Comoros’s penal code criminalizes “improper or unnatural acts between persons of the same-sex.” The punishment for engaging in same-sex relations includes a fine, a prison sentence or both, with up to five years imprisonment.

Although the lesbian couple’s conviction and sentencing is a first in the East African country for violating Article 318, Human Dignity Trust said it is not a clear reflection of the current state of LGBTQ people in Comoros.

“There is limited evidence of discrimination and violence being committed against LGBT people in recent years, however, the lack of LGBT organizations and the hostile environment for LGBT people likely contributes to this lack of information,” said Human Dignity trust.

Comoros is an archipelago of just over 1 million people in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and Mozambique. Cyclone Chido on Dec. 14 devastated Mayotte, a French territory that is part of the Comoro Islands.

Comoros is predominantly Muslim, which shapes attitudes towards homosexuality in the country. African culture is also seen as contradictory to the idea of same-sex sexual relations, which the country champions. This hostility makes it even more difficult for LGBTQ people to come out and for their families and friends to support them.

Some advocacy groups see growing calls to further criminalize LGBTQ people in East Africa and impose more harsh sentences for consensual same-sex sexual relations has, and will contribute to more legislative crackdowns against the LGBTQ community in Comoros.

Coming out has huge ramifications that can even prompt some LGBTQ people to enter into heterosexual marriages arranged by their families.

Those who decide to come out often take precautions to avoid being noticed. Some even flee Comoros and seek refuge in South Africa, Cabo Verde, and other countries that have decriminalized homosexuality.

Information on LGBTQ people in Comoros, however, is scarce because of the lack of LGBTQ organizations and human rights advocacy groups. The Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights First in a 2014 report suggested there have been at least three convictions under Article 318 of the penal code.

The Ghanaian Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed challenges to a bill that would further criminalize LGBTQ people and penalize allyship.

Lawmakers on Feb. 28 approved the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill. Two lawyers, Amanda Odoi and Richard Sky, challenged it.

Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo had previously said he would not sign the bill into law until the Supreme Court issued its ruling. His successor, President-elect John Dramani Mahama, will take office on Jan. 7.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 10 honored Ebenezer Peegah, executive director of Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, and six other human rights activists from around the world during a ceremony at the State Department.

Blinken noted the pending Supreme Court ruling — and discrimination and violence that LGBTQ Ghanaians continue to face — before he presented Peegah with the Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defender Award.

“In Ghana, vigilante groups use social media platforms to organize mobs to attack LGBTQI+ people, as well as to entrap, to blackmail, to harass them,” said Blinken. “As these attacks increase, Ghana’s Supreme Court is considering legislation that would criminalize people for identifying as LGBTQI+, as well as threaten Ghanaians’ constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.”