At least 320 people detained for ‘acts against nature’ after law criminalising homosexuality toughened, HRW reports

Mass arrests, forced HIV testing and barriers to legal representation are part of an escalating crackdown against LGBTQ+ people in Senegal, according to a new report.

More than 320 individuals have been arrested and detained on allegations of “acts against nature” since February, according to HIV Justice Network, an organisation quoted in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. Among these, at least 84 were charged with “voluntary HIV transmission”, solely on the basis of their HIV status.

Tom Stoppard theatre, London
Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo leads the grief-stricken 90s musical about friends living under the threat of Aids

Is Rent one of the musical greats? It’s a forever fan favourite – this new production extended its run even before the official opening – and its origin story holds a special place in theatre-kid hearts. Jonathan Larson, Rent’s creator, died just before the off-Broadway premiere in 1996, aged 35 – a poignant echo of its raggle-taggle bohemians in New York, living fast and fearing death will come before their time.

This production is developed by director Luke Sheppard (Paddington: The Musical) from his version at Manchester’s Hope Mill theatre. With onstage seating circling the space, Sheppard cradles the piece in community, knitting together the story’s hopeful vagabonds. Actors watch between scenes, harmonising and dancing in their chairs. The cast even form something close to a prayer circle for the imperishable Seasons of Love.

He has shot everyone from Madonna to Rihanna, Kate Moss and Frank Ocean. Now Walker has turned his lens on the activists, artists, writers, models and everyday heroes of gay life

Six years ago, Tim Walker was walking in the Highbury Fields area of London when he came across a plaque on the side of a building. In 1970, at these now-converted public toilets, Louis Eakes, chairman of the Young Liberals, was arrested for importuning following a “pretty police” entrapment in which male officers posed as would-be sex partners.

It was here, the plaque told the photographer, that the first ever gay rights demonstration in Britain had taken place, organised by the Gay Liberation Front, in protest at Eakes’s arrest. But Walker was jolted by the date: 27 November 1970. It was the day he was born. So he wondered: “Who were those people out marching that day? Where are they now?”