Sierra Leone homosexual rights activist FannyAnn Eddy was found murdered in the office of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association on the morning of September 29. Eddy was 30.
According to Afrol news,
While she was working alone in the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association’s offices the previous night, her assailant or assailants apparently broke in to the premises. She was raped repeatedly, stabbed and her neck was broken.
Eddy and her organization documented attacks and capricious arrests directed at gays and lesbians in Sierra Leone. In April of 2004 she testified at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva that,
We [members of sexual minorities] face constant harassment and violence from neighbors and others. Their homophobic attacks go unpunished by authorities, further encouraging their discriminatory and violent treatment of lesbian, gay, and transgender people in Sierra Leone.
US-based Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying,
FannyAnn Eddy was a person of extraordinary bravery and integrity, who literally put her life on the line for human rights. Now, she has been murdered in the offices of the organization she founded, and there is grave concern that she herself has become a victim of hatred.
The Associated Press reported that police are searching for an individual who allegedly made threats against Eddy.
Sources:
Gay activist killed in Sierra Leone. Associated Press, October 5, 2004.
Murder of Sierra Leone’s lesbian activist condemned. Afrol News, October 5, 2004.
Sierra Leone: Lesbian Rights Activist Brutally Murdered. Human Rights Watch, October 4, 2004.