UPDATE: Jacinda Ardern has queried rumours Robert Mugabe is attempting to visit New Zealand and says there seems to be no truth to the claims. However she says if any attempt was made, she and "many other" MPs would vigorously oppose a visit by Mugabe. Robert Mugabe There are concerns viciously anti-gay Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has said gay people are ”worse than pigs and dogs” is attempting to visit New Zealand. A letter has been sent to Auckland’s Stamford Plaza hotel asking to book a suite for 'the leader of an African country' with a 'somewhat more complicated profile'. It says there is a chance the visit will cause some controversy in New Zealand. The letter, from a security company, says that the leader is not visiting New Zealand on official government business but for a speaking engagement and book launch: Mugabe is on the Immigration Department's restricted list. Any visit to New Zealand would require Cabinet approval in Parliament. Unknown protestors have started action through a website, www.nomugabevisit.co.nz, where they ask people to lobby Auckland Labour MP Jacinda Ardern and print and share posters. The site’s creator says they are an Auckland University student who flats with someone who works in the hotel industry, which is how they obtained a copy of the letter. Sex between men is illegal in Zimbabwe, under laws which date to the Rhodesian and British colonial eras. Since 1995, the government has carried out campaigns against both homosexual men and women. Mugabe’s said he believes gay men and women “offend both against the law of nature and the morals of religious beliefs espoused by our society”, and should not be allowed to have advocates in Zimbabwe. He has also said: "It degrades human dignity. It's unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings. “What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as Lesbians and Gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 6th April 2013 - 11:33am