Senegal: police investigate possible homophobic mob attack

Senegalese police have commenced investigations into an attack on a young man accused of being homosexual.

According to the police, a video circulating on social networks since Tuesday shows a man being manhandled by a mob hurling homophobic insults at him.

The video began circulating on Tuesday evening amid controversy over Paris Saint-Germain football player and Senegalese international Idrissa Gana Gueye's alleged refusal to join the fight against homophobia by wearing a rainbow shirt at a match in France.

Criticised in France, Idrissa Gana Gueye has received an outpouring of support in Senegal, including from President Macky Sall on Tuesday.

In several videos posted on Youtube and TikTok, an angry crowd of dozens of men surround a young man in a street in broad daylight, barefoot and wearing only boxers.

The crowd shouted, "homosexuality will not be accepted in Senegal". He is held tightly by his wrists, a trickle of blood on his shoulders, and slaps are given to his back and head.

"You homosexual, with all these women within your reach, you decide to have a partner. Let us kill him before the police arrive," one video reads in Wolof. "He doesn't deserve to live," the crowd also calls out.

In one of the videos, a crowd using the same insults is gathered outside a police station in the HLM district in the centre of the capital Dakar.

A police officer at the station told AFP journalists on Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the young man had been brought there the day before.

In this 95% Muslim country, homosexuality is widely considered deviance. The law punishes so-called "unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex" with imprisonment of one to five years.