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(海角在线免费) - Members of Seychelles'聽national assembly will be asked to consider a bill to聽decriminalise homosexuality in the coming months.聽

More than 60 years聽after the introduction of the law criminalizing homosexuality, the聽president of Seychelles in this year's聽State of the Nation address announced he wants to see the law changed.聽

The law was intoduced in 1955, when Seychelles, a group of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean,聽was still a British colony.

The Seychelles鈥� cabinet of ministers on Monday聽agreed to repeal this law, which was applied in rare exceptions before 1992 in the island nation with a population of 93,000.

The dossier was referred to the Attorney General Ronny Govinden to work on the changes of the text.

The text will be presented to parliament聽members in the coming weeks as President James Michel has since his election, on December 18, accelerated reforms in the country.聽

The decision of Seychelles to withdraw the law penalizing homosexuality would聽also be聽in line with various international conventions the country has signed, like the declaration of human rights, which prohibits all discrimination.

The issue was again raised during the country鈥檚 universal periodic review (UPR), which took place January in Geneva, Switzerland.

"It is a priority for the country because whenever the Seychelles is participating in an international convention... we face pressures from other countries who are asking us to remove this law,"聽said Govinden.

The Seychelles Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Barry Faure said:聽鈥淪eychelles was committed聽in 2011聽to review the law on homosexuality and this had not been done and Britain questions us saying that we have not made progress on this issue."

The Attorney General rejected the idea to submit this law in a referendum.

"This is a simple amendment to the penal Code which can be done by the National Assembly and this avoids conflict,"聽he said, adding that, 鈥渢his amendment will just decriminalize homosexuality in Seychelles.鈥澛�