'I Will Slit Your Throat,' Gambian President Tells Gay Men

Gambia's infamously homophobic dictator, President Yahya Gammeh, has threatened to personally slit the throats of any man who wants to marry another man in Gambia, reports Vice News.

Ironically, the personal threat made against his gay countrymen in a public speech was supposed to be about "fostering a healthy atmosphere" for Gambia's youth.

"If you do it [in the Gambia] I will slit your throat -- if you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it," said Jammeh, speaking in the Wolof language at Farafenni, a market town near the Senegal border.

Jammeh's reference to "no white person" is likely a jab at Western diplomats and governments, according to his former press secretary, Fatu Camara. Camara now works as a journalist, after fleeing the country to escape sedition charges.

But the president isn't the only Gambian official proudly showing his homophobic tendencies, Camara told Vice News. Jammeh's foreign minister recently told a European Union gathering that her boss would follow international law, but that the government would "protect religious beliefs and traditions."

"If you read in between the lines, the foreign minister is also trying to say, 'We are not going to accept homosexuality,' " Camara explained to Vice News. "The president already made the Gambians believe that the reason the EU cut funding to him is because of homosexuality."

Jammeh, infamous for his frequent, violent, antigay public statements, signed a law that calls for lifelong prison sentences for acts of "aggravated homosexuality" last year. His roll call of homophobic vitriol includes a speech at the U.N. in which he said homosexuality was one of the three biggest threats to human existence, as well as a threat to kill LGBT asylum-seekers trying to flee the country.