The United Kingdom announced today that it will review its aid to Malawi, if the Government refuses to free two gay men who were sentenced to 14 years hard labor this week. Andrew Mitchell, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for International Development, came under pressure yesterday to begin withdrawing £19 million of British “budget support” for the Commonwealth country’s Government.

The Republic of Malawi of a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.  The Commonwealth of Nations consists of 54 member states, all but two of these countries were formerly part of the British Empire.

The sentenced gay couple, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza — who were sentenced to 14 years hard labor on Thursday for getting engaged in a traditional ceremony in December — has created an international outcry, with celebrities including Madonna joining calls for their release.

Lawyers for Malawi’s convicted first openly gay couple and human rights groups said they plan to appeal to the country’s high court against the harsh sentence handed the couple.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon criticized the Malawi government for jailing the gay couple. “Cases like this are cases we condemn,” Mr. Cannon said Thursday, hours after the two men were sentenced. “We will be following this case as every other case. Canada has a great reputation internationally because we stand up for human rights, and speak out on … things that need to be denounced.”

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States was “appalled” by the sentence and called on the Malawian government to respect the human rights of all its citizens.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also issued a statement, bolstering the statement from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s spokesman:   “The criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity is unconscionable, and this case mars the human rights record of Malawi. We urge Malawi and all countries to stop using sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for arrest, detention, or execution,” Gibbs said.

A spokesman for for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced today the head of the United Nations will visit Malawi, Uganda, and Burundi on May 29th and 30th.

Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued the following statement:

“I am shocked and dismayed by the sentence and reports of the treatment of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga while in detention,” Pillay said. “The law which enabled the conviction dates back to the colonial era and has lain dormant for a number of years – rightly so, because it is discriminatory and has the effect of criminalizing and stigmatizing people based on perceptions of their identity. If this was replicated worldwide, we would be talking about the widespread criminalization of millions of people in consensual relationships and the rampant violation of privacy.”

“Laws that criminalize people on the basis of their sexual orientation are by their nature discriminatory, and as such are in apparent violation of a number of key international treaties and instruments, including the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights,” Pillay stated. “Unfortunately they still exist in quite a number of countries across the world. The trend should be towards getting rid of them, as is the case with other forms of discrimination. Instead, some countries, including Malawi, seem to be heading in the opposite direction.”

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a United Nations agency that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

ILGA CALLS ON THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS AND THE UNITED NATIONS FOR ACTION:

Malawi children protest in favor of the sentence, and even death.

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (“ILGA”), a non-government observer at the United Nations stated: “This is an appalling, vindictive and brutal sentence, which tramples on Malawi’s constitution, violates personal privacy and reverses the country’s commitment to human rights. Steven and Tiwonge love each other and have harmed no one. Yet they get a sentence more severe than some rapists, armed robbers and killers.

ILGA stated they had called on government authorities and leaders at the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations to condemn these violent breaches of gay people’s right. This precedence will endanger the very fabric of society that we seek to protect, to live peaceful side by side and will jeopardize the process of saving lives.

UNITED STATES BLAMED FOR THE TORTURE OF Africa’s GAY COMMUNITY

News sites and papers across the world are slamming the United States as the problem in Africa.

A Washington, D.C. secret society known as “The Family,” was directly linked to death sentences for all homosexuals in the Republic of Uganda. (previous story)

Times Online, a publication in the United Kingdom reported:

Africa’s gays are paying the price for the ideological and cultural battle between US liberals and Conservatives. Concepts such as same-sex marriage, the ordination of gay and women priests, contraception and sex before marriage, female emancipation and equality — the litmus tests of tolerance in the politically correct West — sit uneasily in deeply conservative and traditional societies in Africa.

America’s right-wing Christian fundamentalists have been quick to exploit the situation. Allied with unscrupulous and corrupt politicians they saw an opportunity to win mass support with anti-gay actions and create a springboard from which to begin the fight back against the “evil” back home.