Pardoned, but not free
Fourteen years of hard labour for an engagement party: then Ban Ki-moon stepped in.
On 29 May 2010, a couple left prison in Malawi who should never have been there. Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga had celebrated a traditional engagement in Blantyre at the end of December 2009. Two days later the police arrested them. According to their own account, they were beaten in custody and mocked at their trial.
In May 2010, a court sentenced them to fourteen years in prison with hard labour for "unnatural offences" and "gross indecency". The judge wanted to impose a deterrent sentence to protect the public from imitators. Amnesty International had already adopted the two as prisoners of conscience in January. The trial was seen as a test case for the rights of homosexuals in southern Africa.
Then high politics intervened. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Malawi, and after a meeting at State House, President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned the couple "without conditions". He was doing it on humanitarian grounds, he said, but that did not mean he approved. The two had offended against culture, religion and the law. Ban was to address parliament that same day.
Amnesty welcomed the release but immediately warned. The pardon applied only to the acts for which the couple had been convicted. If the two continued their relationship, the same laws could be used against them again. Malawi has ratified treaties that prohibit prosecution on grounds of sexual orientation, including the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Ban Ki-moon was expected to call on members of parliament to change the laws.
The case shows how thin protection can be when it depends on the mercy of one individual. Two people were freed; no law changed as a result.