The first openly gay Imam was ambushed and killed on his way to officiate a wedding in South Africa.
Eastern Cape provincial police said in a statement that Imam Muhsin Hendricks, 58, was in a VW TRoc with a driver in Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape, on Saturday, Feb. 15, when another vehicle pulled up and blocked their car, CNN reported.
“Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots at the vehicle,” according to the statement, per CNN. “Thereafter they fled the scene, and the driver noticed that Hendricks who was seated at the back of the vehicle was shot and killed.”
Eastern Cape provincial police said the motive behind the slaying was not clear, according to CNN.
Hendricks’ non-profit Al-Ghurbaah Foundation said Hendricks was in Gqeberha to “officiate the marriages of two interfaith heterosexual couples when he was tragically shot and killed,” according to a statement, BBC reported.
The South African Human Rights Commission strongly condemned the killing and called on “law enforcement authorities to conduct a thorough and expeditious investigation to determine the motive behind his killing,” according to a statement. “Should it be confirmed that Imam Hendricks was targeted for his advocacy in support of the LGBTQI+ community, this crime would highlight the urgent need for the full and effective implementation of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Act.”
The commission described Hendricks as a “pioneering advocate for equality and inclusion, particularly for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more (LGBTQI+) persons within faith communities. His work sought to create spaces of dignity and recognition for all, challenging discrimination and advocating for human rights within the framework of religious expression.”
Julia Ehrt, the executive director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), an advocacy group, called on authorities to “thoroughly investigate what we fear may be a hate crime,” Ehrt said in a statement. “He supported and mentored so many people in South Africa and around the world in their journey to reconcile with their faith, and his life has been a testament to the healing that solidarity across communities can bring in everyone’s lives.”
ILGA said Hendricks was among the speakers at a conference in 2024 and spoke “about the importance of interfaith communities as a healing factor for LGBTI people who struggle to reconcile with their faith, and of the solidarity he felt when in recent times people in a WhatsApp group called for the closure of his Mosque, which people branded ‘The Gay Temple.’”
Hendricks founded the Al-Ghurbaah Foundation that “provides psycho-spiritual and psycho-social support to Queer Muslims helping them to reconcile Islam with their sexual orientation and gender identity” in 2018.
A documentary called The Radical about Hendricks was released in 2022. In the documentary, Hendricks said threats against him “just didn’t bother me. The need to be authentic was greater than the fear to die,” the Associated Pressreported.
