The Prime Minister of Fiji wants all homosexuals to leave the country, and move instead to Iceland.
Shamima Ali, co-ordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Center, has been calling upon the government of the South Pacific island to legalise same-sex marriage for some time now. Gay Star News reports that Fiji’s Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, emphatically disagrees.
“Tell Shamima Ali, there will be no same-sex marriage in Fiji,” he said in a radio interview. “Not in her lifetime and not in ours.” He added that if two women in Fiji wanted to marry, “they should go and have it done in Iceland and stay and live there. Fiji does not need that rubbish.”
Ali, in turn, told Radio New Zealand that Bainimarama’s statements were “extreme homophobia”.
“And it’s just not in keeping with statements that government has been making in terms of human rights, and violence against women, and our aspiration to be on the UN Human Rights Council in the near future,” she said.
While Fiji did include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation in their constitution in 1997, that constitution was scuttled two years later.
At the time of this writing, no Icelandic politicians have issued statements responding to Bainimarama’s remarks.
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