good to see. i was in mauritius a few weeks ago and didnt know it was criminal to be gay.
it was evident to me that it’s a very conservative country though, some of the mauritians i know are quite homophobic. it would have been better for the abolition of this law to come from parliament. i hope this doesnt trigger reactionary moves to recriminalise.
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PORT-LOUIS, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court of Mauritius has struck out a colonial-era law criminalising same-sex relations, bucking a trend elsewhere in Africa where a string of countries have passed or proposed anti-LGBT legislation.
“Section 250 was not introduced in Mauritius to reflect any indigenous Mauritian values but was inherited as part of our colonial history from Britain,” the court said in a ruling handed down on Wednesday.
He said the group’s next priorities were to achieve legal recognition for transgender people, legalise same-sex unions and fight hate crimes based on sexuality.
The government, the defendant in the cases, had said that while it was sympathetic to the arguments put forward by LGBT citizens, the values of wider society meant that the time was not right to change the law through parliament.
UNAIDS, the United Nations agency in charge of combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, said the ruling was an important step forward for public health and towards equal rights and respect for the LGBT community.
The Mauritian ruling stands in sharp contrast to developments elsewhere in Africa, most recently in Uganda which passed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBT laws in May, imposing the death penalty for some same-sex acts.
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