Steven Monjeza (L) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga sit in a pick-up
truck before appearing at a magistrate court in Blantyre Jan 4, 2010.
"I love Steven so much. If people or the world cannot give me
the chance and freedom to continue living with him as my lover,
then I am better off to die here in prison. Freedom without him is
useless and meaningless." – Chimbalanga, 20, wrote in a statement
released through human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
A judge in Malawi has sentenced Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga to 14 years in prison with hard labour after they were convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts on May 18 under British colonial-era laws that remain in Malawi's penal code.
"I will give you a scaring sentence so that the public be protected from people like you, so that we are not tempted to emulate this horrendous example," said Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa-Usiwa in the commercial capital, Blantyre, reported the BBC.
Monjeza, 26, and Chimbalanga, 20, have been in jail since their arrest in December 2009 after holding a symbolic ceremony which attracted onlookers. They were arrested two days later and detained in harsh conditions. Homosexuality in the conservative southern African country is outlawed and remains deeply taboo.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) reported that following their arrest Chimbalanga was forced to undergo an involuntary anal examination and both were forced to undergo an involuntary psychiatric evaluation.
Their arrest has sparked a debate about homosexuality in the country and condemnation from activists in Malawi and around the world.
Prominent British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell wrote wrote on his website: "The conviction by a Malawian court of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga on charges of homosexuality is the latest example of how, more than four decades after most African nations won their independence, the evils of colonialism continue to wreck lives.
"The two men face up to 14 years jail under laws that were imposed on the people of Malawi by the British colonisers in the nineteenth century. Before the British came and conquered Malawi, there were no laws against homosexuality. These laws are a foreign imposition. They are not African at all. Despite independence, these alien criminalisations were never repealed.
"Today, the minds of many Malawians – and other Africans – remain colonised by the homophobic beliefs that were drummed into their forebears by the western missionaries who invaded their lands alongside the conquering imperial armies. The missionaries preached a harsh, intolerant Christianity, which has been so successfully internalised by many Africans that they now claim homophobia as their own culture and tradition."
Sixty-seven members of the British Parliament have signed a motion condemning the prosecution and the international human rights group Amnesty International adopted the couple as prisoners of conscience.