US Magazine Classifies Me Alice Nkom Among 8 Most Fascinating Africans in 2012

Me Alice Nkom

Me Alice Nkom, has been rated as one of the most fascinating Africans in 2012 by a United States based Magazine "The New Yorker". Top on the list of the most fascinating Africans is Namibian President Joyce Banda, followed by Me Alice Nkom of Cameroon,  the Kenyan David (Tosh) Gitonga, from the small town of Nanyuki,Tanzanian female lawmaker Al-Shaymaa Kwegyir, Proscovia Oromait the nineteen-year-old Ugandan college student who became the youngest MP, South African political analyst Justice Malala, he captivating musical duo P-Square and Rwandan President Paul Kagame .

This is what The New Yorker says of Me Alice Nkom: It is rare enough to find vocal gay-rights advocates in West Africa, but the Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom takes it one step further: she has devoted her practice, the Association to Defend Homosexuals, to protecting L.G.B.T. citizens in a country where homosexual acts are illegal. As a result, she has been repeatedly threatened with disbarment and arrest. (One Cameroonian lawyer went on local television with a Bible, advising that Nkom be put to death for promoting homosexuality.) Sixty-seven years old and grandmotherly looking, the lawyer called attention to an “anti-gay crackdown” last year in Cameroon, in which at least ten people had been arrested on charges of homosexuality, including one man who was sentenced to three years in prison for sending a text message to another man, and numerous incidents of homophobic violence. She refuses to close her practice. “Someone has to do this,” she says.

When News Breaks Out, We Break In. Minute by Minute Report on Cameroon and Africa