The South African embassy in Warsaw, Poland, has declined to sign an annual pledge affirming the rights of gay people for the first time since the initiative began eight years ago.
The Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) has not explained why.
The annual pledge – a letter endorsed by embassies in Poland – arises from concern about homophobia in the country. Poland is considered by some to be one of the more homophobic countries in the world, and certain rights, such as marriage, are denied to gay people.
Last year Andrzej Duda was re-elected as the country’s president in a close race against Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw. Duda had previously said that LGBTI ‘ideology’ was worse than communism, with a number of human rights groups warning that the situation for gay people in the country was at risk of deteriorating.
Since 2012 about fifty embassies in Poland have signed an annual open letter expressing support for the LGBTI community in the country. This year’s letter, co-ordinated by Denmark and published last month, was signed by 48 countries, including Venezuela, Israel and Chile.
The letter said, in part: ‘We express our support for the efforts to raise public awareness of issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community and other communities in Poland facing similar challenges.’
While DIRCO has refused to comment on the matter, a former diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Daily Maverick that South Africa’s failure to sign the letter was because of homophobia among senior officials in the department.