In a landmark meeting with representatives of the LGBT rights group LEGABIBO, Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi vowed to protect LGBT persons’ human rights and to fully implement the recent historic court ruling that upheld the decision to decriminalise same-sex intimacy between consenting adults As AfricaNews points out, five years ago the human group had to go to court to circumvent a government ban on its existence. In 2019, the court in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, ordered that laws punishing same-sex relationships be amended, calling them “relics of the (British) Victorian era” that “oppress a minority.” “Please know for the record, you are fully embraced. Fear not, my job is to protect you and everybody else,” said Masisi during his meeting with the human rights organisation. Masisi said that his appeal of the court ruling that had overturned Botswana’s anti-homosexuality law was motivated by political concerns and not by animosity towards them, recalling that “we live in a rather conservative society.” That appeal was rejected in November.