Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon To Raise The Issue Of Gay Rights With President Mahama During Meeting

 

President John Dramani Mahama is currently on a state visit of Scotland, set to address the Scottish parliament, meet its First Minister, and meet the Ghanaian community in the country- amongst others.
During the meeting, Nicola Sturgeon is set to speak with the Ghanaian leader on Ghana’s LGBT rights record.
PinkNews reported that Sturgeon would speak with the Ghanaian on several issues of bi-lateral interest, but would place strong emphasis on “values of humanity, equality and tolerance”.
“While we’ve seen some promising statements from President Mahama criticising violence against LGBT communities, we believe that the Scottish Government has an important responsibility to help advance the protection of LGBT rights across the world, and this visit is a key moment. ” director of Stonewall Scotland, Colin MacFarlane, said.
“At Stonewall, we also believe in always engaging activists on the ground for their guidance on how opportunities for dialogue, such as this, could be of benefit to them, so we are actively reaching out to Ghanaian activists on this point.”
During his visit to Parliament Thursday, Mahama reportedly received lukewarm applause from the MP’s, with the opposition making a big stink out of Ghana’s record.
Ghana of course, has a terrible record on LGBT rights. Beating of homosexuals is not uncommon, public figures, especially but not limited to the clergy, make disparaging remarks against the community, and attempt making the already existing restrictions on them much more restrictive. And the public is almost universally homophobic.
Of course, President Mahama is not going to say anything meaningful on the subject. He’ll mumble something, and then discard whatever he said immediately he walks out of that meeting. He has been branded as too friendly to gays in the past, and with an election coming up he’s not going to risk not appearing strong on this issue.