This week, a number of African human rights organizations reiterated their demands that the American multinational Intel Corporation fire a senior employee over his alleged role in stoking anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in a number of nations, including Kenya and Uganda.
The rights groups contend that Greg Slater, Intel’s vice president of global regulatory affairs, has been “actively in charge of importing, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia” on the continent for decades through the American right-wing group Family Watch International in a change.org petition that has the backing of more than a dozen organizations.
The activists charge Slater’s wife, Sharon, who runs Family Watch International, with working to obstruct LGBTQ rights by influencing lawmakers and high-ranking African leaders. These accusations have followed the Slaters for years. The US civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center labels the organization a “hate group.”
Jedidah Maina of the Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health, the Kenyan non-profit that filed the petition, claimed that “Family Watch International has sponsored trips for politicians and diplomats from Kenya, Uganda, and other African countries to… train them on their extremist agenda against homosexuality, sexuality education, and reproductive rights.”
The organizations backing the petition assert that Family Watch International supported the recent anti-gay legislation approved in Uganda in May, which mandate the death sentence or life in prison for specific same-sex conduct. They assert that the group has been active in other nations like Ghana and Kenya, where efforts to pass similar legislation have been made in recent months, and that Slater’s claimed participation in “anti LGBTQ+ advocacy” conflicts with Intel’s stated support for LGBTQ+ rights.
Greg Slater and Family Watch International did not respond to messages seeking comment, but the organization categorically refutes these allegations on its website, stating: “Despite media reports to the the contrary, Family Watch never advocated for or lobbied in favor of Uganda’s anti-homosexual bill, neither were we ever involved in promoting Uganda’s previous anti-homosexual bill – in fact, we opposed them both. Family Watch has never attempted to advance any anti-homosexual legislation in Africa.
However, rights organizations claim that the contrary is true. “The wave of anti-homosexuality bills we are seeing is not organic,” said Muthoni Ngugi, executive director of the East Africa Legal Service Network, one of the groups backing the petition.
Peter Kaluma, a Kenyan MP, promised to introduce an anti-gay law in the country’s parliament following an inter-parliamentary conference on “family values and sovereignty” organized by Family Watch International in Uganda in April and attended by officials from 22 African nations. Although the measure has not yet been introduced to parliament for discussion and is still in the “pre-publication scrutiny” stage, it has alarmed rights organizations.
After the country’s supreme court judges upheld the right of association for LGBTQ+ organizations in February, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the east African nation increased this year. According to data provided to the Guardian by the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, there have been about a dozen anti-LGBTQ+ rallies in significant cities and at least 356 instances of physical, verbal, cyber, and death threats made against members of the community in the months after the ruling.
“Intel is extremely dedicated to diversity and inclusion,” a spokeswoman for the company stated. We also recognize the variety of perspectives and opinions held by our staff. As long as they handle their coworkers with respect and uphold Intel’s code of conduct, we accept our employees’ rights to disagree with Intel’s policies or engage in extracurricular activities.