[Tanzania]Gay marriage advice rebuffed

THE government has maintained that it will not buy any advice on homosexual and gay marriages since they are against the country’s laws, religious beliefs and cultural norms.

The Minister for Constitution and Legal Affairs, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that, issues related to homosexuality are illegal and cannot be entertained unless the National Assembly decides otherwise.
He was speaking during a meeting with the ministry's senior officials who aired their views regarding the implementation of various recommendations on human rights.
This follows the request by Geneva based Universal Periodic Review Info (UPR) for the government to conduct seminars to its senior officials and Members of Parliament on implementation of various recommendations on human rights issued by US and other European nations.
Minister Mwakyembe and his officials jointly rejected the recommendations by UPR Info due to late submission and those supporting marriages. "Early this year we managed to prepare ourselves and submit to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the second national human rights report under the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism - (UPR) on September 22 this year," He added: "We did a good job and now we have started preparing for the coming UPR meeting scheduled for 2021 under the supervision of the office of Attorney General and I don't think we need any expert support.
" In his meeting this week with UPR-Info, Africa regional coordinator Mr Gilbert Onyang in Dar es Salaam, Minister Mwakyembe admitted to have received the recommendations and promised to work on them in collaboration with other ministry officials.
He, however, warned that the UPR Info will be wasting its time if the recommendations aimed at convincing the country to recognise homosexual gay marriage as human rights because it is contrary to the country’s laws, religious beliefs and cultural norms.
Mr Onyango, who is a Kenyan national, assured Minister Mwakyembe that his institution will not deal with issues which have been rejected by the country. During the 25th meeting by the UN Human Rights Council held in Geneva this year Tanzania received 227 recommendations of which it agreed to implement 131 and reject 94 while two of them were not fully accepted.
According to experts, the recommendations approved by Tanzania correspond to the country’s constitution, laws, policies, various programmes, traditions and customs.
Among other the recommendations included, completion of the new constitution, provide financial support to the Human Rights Commission and Good Governance, implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), preparation of human rights report, women and children rights, rights for people with disabilities.
The recommendations which have been rejected included gay rights, rape in marriage, to widen the scope of legalising abortion, death sentence and polygamy, among others.
source-www.dailynews.co.tz