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(Zanzibar) He may be
Zanzibar's most famous son but religious leaders on the mostly
Islamic island are demanding the government block an
international party to mark what would have been Freddie
Mercury's 60th birthday.
The mullahs say that the openly
gay Queen frontman who died of complications from AIDS in 1991
brought shame on the island because of "his
lifestyle".
"Associating Mercury with Zanzibar degrades our island as a place of
Islam," the islands' Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation
said in a letter to the culture Ministry.
The letter, signed by chief mullah Abdallah Said Ali,
said Mercury led a life condemned by Islam.
Mercury was not Islamic.
His parents adhered to the Zoroastrian faith and Mercury was
cremated according to their beliefs.
Recently posters have been
cropping up across Zanzibar promoting a
huge beach party to mark the singer's birth date - September 5. Zanzibar has
been a popular tourist area for gays from South Africa despite
having some of the world's most repressive laws against
homosexuality.
Two years ago the Parliament unanimously
passed legislation imposing a prison term of up to
25 years for anyone convicted of having gay sex.
While gay men could be sentenced to a quarter
century behind bars the penalty for lesbian sex is seven years. The gay sex
sentence is the same as that for murder.
Last year four Islamic clerics
were arrested for the beating a gay couple. The clerics said
they had become enraged after hearing that the men
planned to marry. All four were members of the Association for Islamic
Mobilization.
The clerics were later found
not guilty, the couple was charged with violating the sodomy
law and jailed.
©365Gay.com 2006
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