Pretoria -South Africa has broken ranks with its African counterparts at the United Nations, by supporting an amendment to a resolution that would recognise homosexuals as a group vulnerable to extrajudicial killings and summary executions.
On Wednesday, SA joined other UN member states and voted in favour of the proposed amendment on the resolution on Extra Judicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, International Relations spokesperson Clayson Monyela said.
The clause had been removed after pressure from some Arab and African member states, but the US had pushed to have it reinstated.
The General Assembly voted 93 in favour of the US proposal, with 55 countries voting against and 27 abstaining.
Referring to the country's Constitution, which guarantees the right to life, Monyela said they support the amendment that seeks to provide "very significant protection to a category of people who are killed because of their sexual orientation."
"The principle of equality and non-discrimination permeates all spheres of life in our society. Sexual orientation is expressly mentioned in our Constitution as one of the grounds upon which discrimination is prohibited along other grounds like, sex, gender, religion, race and nationality or ethnicity," Monyela said.
The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years.
The original 2008 declaration had included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims' sexual preferences.
It also expresses opposition to violence motivated by racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons, as well as the killings of refugees, indigenous people and other groups.
