Muhsin Hendricks, world’s ‘first overtly homosexual imam’, shot lifeless in South Africa | South Africa

Muhsin Hendricks, thought-about the world’s “first overtly homosexual imam”, has been shot lifeless close to the southern metropolis of Gqeberha, South African police have mentioned.

The imam, who ran a mosque supposed as a protected haven for homosexual and different marginalised Muslims, was in a automotive with one other particular person on Saturday when a automobile stopped in entrance of them and blocked their exit, police mentioned.

“Two unknown suspects with coated faces bought out of the automobile and began firing a number of pictures on the automobile,” the Japanese Cape drive mentioned in a press release.

“Thereafter they fled the scene, and the driving force seen that Hendricks, who was seated behind the automobile was shot and killed.”

A police spokesperson confirmed to AFP the authenticity of a video on social media that purported to point out a focused killing in Bethelsdorp close to Gqeberha, previously often known as Port Elizabeth.

“The motive for the homicide is unknown and kinds a part of the continuing investigation,” police mentioned, urging anyone with info to return ahead.

The Worldwide Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Affiliation denounced the killing.

“The ILGA World household is in deep shock on the information of the homicide of Muhsin Hendricks, and calls on authorities to totally examine what we worry could also be a hate crime,” the manager director, Julia Ehrt, mentioned in a press release.

Hendricks, concerned in varied LGBTQ+ advocacy teams, got here out as homosexual in 1996. Two years later he began internet hosting conferences in his dwelling metropolis for LGBTQ+ Muslims, who handled him like their neighborhood imam. “I opened my storage, put a carpet down and invited individuals to have tea and discuss,” he advised the Guardian in 2022.

In 2011 Hendricks bolstered his function as an imam determine by organising a mosque house after a good friend endured a neighborhood sermon condemning homosexuality. “I mentioned, ‘Possibly it’s time we began our personal house, so individuals can pray with out being judged’.”

He ran the Al-Ghurbaah mosque at Wynberg close to his birthplace, Cape City. The mosque offers “a protected house wherein queer Muslims and marginalised ladies can practise Islam”, its web site states.

Hendricks, the topic of a 2022 documentary referred to as The Radical, had beforehand alluded to threats towards him.

He advised the Guardian he had been suggested to rent bodyguards however mentioned he by no means feared assaults and insisted that “the should be genuine” was “larger than the worry to die”.

Hendricks, who had labored as an Arabic language trainer and dressmaker, was 29 when he got here out to his mom. Born right into a Muslim household, he married a girl, had kids, then divorced earlier than revealing his sexuality to his household, eight years after his father died.

South Africa has one of many world’s highest homicide charges, with 28,000 murders within the yr to February 2024, in accordance with police information.