PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, February 10: Police in Senegal have arrested over a dozen men, including a well-known TV presenter and a musician, in a case involving “unnatural acts” – parlance for gay sex. The New York Times calls it Senegal’s most high-profile anti-gay case in years. Also in the country, a horrific paedophile ring spearheaded by a French man leads to multiple arrests. Finally, who is Ilia Malinin, the US figure skater who is revolutionising the sport?
Senegalese police have arrested several men for allegedly committing “unnatural acts” – a reference to gay sex. Among those arrested are Pape Cheikh Diallo, a “beloved” TV presenter and Djiby Dramé, a musician. The pair appeared alongside 10 other men in court near Dakar on Monday. The website Sene News reports that Cheikh Diallo and Dramé have been deferred to prison while awaiting trial. The New York Times explains that the case is the most high-profile anti-gay case in years. According to police, an HIV-positive individual admitted to knowingly infecting other men who were contacted through WhatsApp. The identity of the suspect was not revealed, but the Times notes that the arrests come as part of a crackdown on homosexuality in Senegal, which has become “increasingly intolerant of gay and gender fluid people in recent decades.” Cheikh Diallo interviews celebrities on TFM, Senegal’s most watched TV channel, which was funded by the musician Youssou N’Dour. He has 3 million followers on TikTok and is particularly popular with young viewers. News website Sene Web quotes the head of Stop Homophobie, a Paris-based gay rights group which regularly comes to the aid of victims of discrimination in Senegal. The group condemned the arrests, saying it will expose LGBTQIA+ people to further stigma in a devoutly Muslim Senegal, where homosexuality is punishable by prison.
Staying in Senegal, major arrests have been made in what being called a sickening paedophile project. Wakat Séra, a pan-African paper based in Burkina Faso, reports that 14 people were arrested at the weekend after months of investigation in both France and Senegal. They are accused of organised paedophilia, pimping, rape of minors, sodomy and the intentional transmission of HIV/AIDS. The men are accused of forcing boys to have unprotected sex with HIV-positive men and filming it. Four of the men were reportedly acting on the instructions of a French man in exchange for money. That man was arrested in France last year. According to Le Parisien, the network appeared to target a particularly vulnerable part of the Senegalese population called talibé. They are children who are sent to Koranic schools but often find themselves forced to beg on the streets.
Finally, US superstar ice skater Ilia Malinin is getting a lot of attention in the press. Malinin is the new star of ice skating after being the first skater to land the sport’s most difficult jump: “a quadruple axel”. He did this while competing in the Team USA event at the Winter Olympics, helping them secure the gold medal. The quadruple axel is a four-and-a-half rotation in the air. As The New York Times reports, the self-proclaimed “Quad God” is the son of two Russian-born Olympic figure skaters who competed for Uzbekistan. Malinin was left out of the US Olympic team four years ago due to inexperience, but has spent four years making a name for himself. At the weekend, he also performed the first legal backflip in Olympic ice-skating history. As NPR explains, French figure skater Surya Bonaly landed a backflip on one blade in 1998’s Nagano Games despite it being completely illegal. She knew in her routine that she wouldn’t get a medal, so she did the backflip anyway. It cost her points, but cemented her trailblazing legacy, especially as a Black athlete in a sport not known for its racial diversity. Canadian sports website TSN reminds us that the backflip became known as the “Bonaly flip” and some say Malinin owes his feats to those who came before him and paid the price for it.
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