Senegal’s government has defended its strict anti-LGBTQ law amid growing criticism from international rights groups and activists, with Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko accusing Western countries of trying to “impose” foreign social values ​​on the country.Addressing lawmakers on Friday, Sonko condemned what he described as Western pressure on Senegal over homosexuality. “There is a kind of oppression there. There are probably eight billion human beings in the world. Eighty percent or more do not want (homosexuality),” he told parliament.Sonko said, “No Arab country will criticize us, nor any African country, but there is a center called the West… which wants to impose it (homosexuality) on the rest of the world.” “Because they have the means (and) control the media, (they) want to impose their order. The sovereign Senegalese people do not want these practices in Senegal.”The prime minister said Senegal had faced criticism abroad, especially from France, after the law was approved. “If they have chosen these practices, that’s their problem, but we have no lessons to learn from them, none at all,” he said.The comments come weeks after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye imposed a controversial new law that significantly increases penalties for gay relationships in the Muslim-majority West African nation. The law, passed by parliament by an overwhelming majority in March, has already led to dozens of arrests and sparked fierce debate inside Senegal and abroad.The amended law increases the prison sentence for those described as “acts against nature” – a term used to refer to same-sex relationships – to five to 10 years in prison from the previous one to five years’ prison sentence. It also provides for a prison sentence of three to seven years for anyone found guilty of promoting or financing homosexual relations.This law has created concern at the international level. UN rights chief Volker Turk described the law as “deeply worrying” and said it “goes against sacred human rights”. Earlier this month, a group of about 30 African-American figures writing in the French newspaper Liberation warned of a growing “climate of fear, hatred and violence” in Senegal since the law was passed.