Google refuses to remove gay rights video in Kenya

Google has not removed a video illustrating the plight of gay people in Kenya despite the country’s Films Classification Board calling for it to be taken down. The video features a cover of Macklemore’s ‘Same Love’ by the group Art Attack. Homosexuality is punishable by between five and fourteen years imprisonment in Kenya.

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The Kenya Films Classification Board (KFCB) has been unsuccessful in getting a music video pulled that shows the plight of many gay people in the country.

The cover of Macklemore’s ‘Same Love’ by group Art Attack features scenes of gay couples out in the streets and kissing on benches, interspersed with local news reports about homosexuality being “a disease worth than alcohol”.

Kenyan regulators damned the video, saying it would turn the country into “Sodom and Gomorrah” and that they would be punishing anyone who watched it, writing to Google Kenya to ask that they pull the video as it “promotes homosexuality and contains nudity and pornography”.

A lawyer for Google Kenya was somewhat evasive, saying it operates separately from YouTube and doesn’t regulate content, but either way, the video remains live.

President of the KFCB, Ezekiel Mutua, though he has admitted that homosexuality is an evolving issue in the country, has threatened to take the matter to court, claiming there is a “war of ideologies” in Kenya over the issue.

He said that a homosexual man would not be turned away if he applied for a job on the board, “but if they kiss one another man in public, tthey will be condemned.”

Homosexuality remains punishable by between five and fourteen years imprisonment in the country.