The governor of Tanzania’s most-populated city, Dar es Salaam, has created a team to round up gay people.
Paul Makonda urged the city’s more than four million residents to report any information they have about gay people before the crackdown starts on November 6, according to AFP.
In the declaration on Monday (October 29), he said: “Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them next Monday.”
Queer people can face up to life imprisonment in Tanzania if convicted of having gay sex.
Makonda, who has held his position since 2016, said: “I have information about the presence of many homosexuals in our province.
“These homosexuals boast on social networks.”
The governor said that gay sex “tramples on the moral values of Tanzanians and our two Christian and Muslim religions.”
Makonda was anticipating backlash from people who lived outside Tanzania, but said that he would “prefer to anger those countries than to anger God.”
Police officers in Dar es Salaam arrested 12 men last year, accusing them of “promoting homosexuality” and engaging in gay sex.
And at least 20 people were arrested for “homosexual activity” in a police raid in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar.
