'If you are gay, members of your community ostracize you. People think you are not normal, and they look at it as an abomination.'
Friends of Albert Nabonibo, a well-known gospel singer in Rwanda who recently came out as a gay man, do not want their names revealed. It is too shameful, one says. Another says he is anguished because his family knows he often used to socialize with Nabonibo.
"But there is no going back, because I have to live my real life," Nabonibo said in an interview in the capital, Kigali."It's so sad to see people you know abusing you." "There is a long list of them in your midst and they include pastors or churchgoers," he said."This pretense encouraged me to speak out."
Some of Nabonibo's best friends who spoke to the AP said they were too embarrassed even to talk about him. They requested anonymity for their own privacy.Another friend, a man who attends the same church as Nabonibo, said he was in a state of"agony" since the rest of his family knows he used to hang out with Nabonibo. Now he has blocked Nabonibo from all phone contact, saying he wants to"keep safe.
"All Rwandans are born and remain equal in rights and freedoms," Olivier Nduhungirehe, Rwanda's state minister for foreign affairs, said on Twitter.
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