Ghanaian LGBTQ Advocates Condemn Mass Arrest of LGBTQ Conference Attendees

Advocates in Ghana have mounted a social media campaign to press for the release of 21 people arrested on May 21 in a police raid on a conference about LGBTQ human rights abuses, CNN has reported.

Reports also indicate it was journalists who led the action against the conference attendees.

Ghanaian police claimed participants in the conference – which took place in the city of Ho – "had gathered to advocate LGBT+ activities with books and flyers with titles including, 'Coming out' and 'All about Trans,'" Reuters reported.

But advocates disputed this accusation.

"Rights organization Rightify Ghana said the group had met to share insight on how to document and report human rights violations being experienced by LGBT+ Ghanaians," Reuters detailed.

Advocates quickly responded, as per CNN: "An online campaign with the hashtag #ReleaseThe21 has gone viral on social media platform Twitter, as people demanded the immediate release of the detainees."

In tweets, Rightify Ghana claimed those arrested were paralegals and that journalists had initially stormed the conference and detained attendees, whose photos were taken and belongings were confiscated before police were called.

CNN also confirmed these claims with Alex Kofi Donkor – who runs an LGBTQ community center in the city of Accra – who told the outlet one of his own staff members was among those detained.

"The event started at 9 am on Thursday with about 25 persons in attendance. Two hours later, some journalists invaded the space and started taking photos and videos," Donkor said. "The police came almost immediately and arrested most of the attendees."

Donkor told CNN that institutional homophobia is deeply ingrained in Ghana and alleged that "in police stations, sometimes, the police even turn around and arrest an individual who has come to report issues of abuse while ignoring the perpetrator."

The detainees are due in court on June 4.

Donkor's own community center was the subject of headlines earlier this year when the center, which opened this past January, was forced to close for a time. According to The Guardian, the center shuttered "following mounting pressure by religious groups and anti-gay organizations against sexual minorities" as well as online harassment and death threats that sent the center's staff "into hiding."

Even after the center closed, the harassment did not end: police would stage a raid on the building.

Ghana is one of 32 African nations that criminalize LGBTQ people, and penalties for same-sex intimacy are steep, as per CNN: Anywhere between three and 25 years in jail can result. A controversy erupted last year after the Ghanaian government banned a major conference of LGBTQ equality advocates, and did so after allowing a conference by a major American anti-gay group to proceed.