Mob attacks Ivory Coast home of three LGBT activists; cops told men to leave neighborhood

Photo: Alternative Cote d’Ivoire

On Jan. 20th, the home of three members of Alternative Cote d'Ivoire in an upscale neighborhood of Abidjan, Ivory Coast were set upon by dozens of assailants who shouted death threats and hurled rocks and garbage.

     Soon after returning home from work shortly before 7 p.m., Touré said, the three Alternative CI staff members noticed that a crowd of about 60 people had assembled outside, whistling and banging on pots and pans. They threatened the occupants of the “faggot house,” shouting, “We will kill them,” “We don’t want fags in our city,” “We don’t want people with AIDS in our neighborhood,” “We’ll kill you all,” “We don’t want people working with AIDS and queers here,” “Damn you! We’ll burn your ass.”  Alternatives Cote d’Ivoire reported further:
     The mob kept up the racket as it tried to break down the doors of the house  with rocks and metal bars.  They threw garbage and human excrement, then prepared Molotov cocktails to burn the building and the people inside. The police arrived just in time to intervene...
     On the day after the Jan. 20 attack, the LGBT activists and police met again at the police station and immediately began arguing.
     The argument began after the chief asked a colleague whether he had “handled the case of the queers who disturbed public order.”
     The chief then turned to the Alternatives CI staff and said, “You’re the ones who are  pimping and running a brothel, huh?”
     Touré denied it and added, “You should listen to us first.”
     “But you admitted that yesterday in the presence of the duty officer,” the chief said.
     Touré denied that also.
     The chief responded, “So you mean that the officer lied? In any case, I don’t want to hear about homosexuality in my town.”
     Agence de Presse Africaine (APA) ... [adopted] the neighbors’ anti-gay position in an article that Abidjan.net titled, “Eviction of a group of homosexuals in a posh neighborhood of Abidjan.”
     The article begins, “A group of homosexuals, posing a threat to the education of children in a district of Abidjan, was driven off Tuesday evening by local residents.”