Tunisia debunks claims it validated same sex marriage

The Tunisian government Tuesday denied claims by the country’s leading LGBT group that it has approved a same marriage, adding that the North African country still does not recognize homosexuality, Webdo Tunis reports.

Minister of Local Affairs, Lotfi Zitoun speaking in front of the Tunisian parliament squashed the controversy that birthed in the North African country after Shams, the country’s leading LGBT group announced on its Facebook page that authorities have rubber-stamped the first homosexual marriage in the Arab country where homosexuality is outlawed.

Shams on the Facebook post said the union sealed in France between a French national and a Tunisian citizen, has been recognized in Tunisia.

Lotfi Zitoun re-iterated that Tunisia still does not legalize same sex marriage unlike France. The official also stressed that the marriage never occurred in Tunisia and that Tunisia never approved it, Webdo Tunis adds.

Shams’s leader, Mounir Baatour, a lawyer by professional fled the country in January and sought asylum in France after running for the 2019 presidential election. He had told Reuters, after fleeing, that police summoned him to inform him of very serious threats to his life.