We are not gays: Zimbabwe president Mugabe tells United Nations

LGBT rights is something that several countries in the world, including India, are trying to wrap their heads around. While in India, the Supreme Court and government have refused to decriminalise homosexuality, there are some other countries where gay rights are looked at with far more contempt.

That Zimbabwe has one of the worst LGBT rights records in well known, but it was made clearer when the country’s president Robert Mugabe used the platform of the UN to express his disgust towards homosexuality.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, the 91-year-old Mugabe criticised Western countries for trying to impose ’new rights’ on other countries where it did not go well with the norms.

The Telegraph quoted him as saying , "We reject the politicisation of this important issue and the application of double standards to victimise those who think and act independently of the self-anointed prefects of our time. We equally reject attempts to prescribe ’new rights’ which are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs."

Then he blurted out, “We are not gays.”

And this is not the first time that Mugabe has lashed out against gay rights. Earlier in in 2011, he had called British PM David Cameron ‘satanic’ for supporting gay rights.

“It becomes worse and Satanic when you get a prime minister like Cameron saying countries that want British aid should accept homosexuality,” The Telegraph had quoted him as saying.

Mugabe had also said gays were “worse than pigs and dogs” and threatened that “We will punish you severely.”