‘Rainbow Statelessness’ response to a video of the ceremony circulating online, controversial Ghanaian lawyer, Dr Maurice Ampaw, launched a campaign calling for Caesar to be stripped of his citizenship. 66 Ampaw wrote on social media: Ghana’s laws are against gay marriage and anal sex is illegal so if he as a Ghanaian has married a gay partner then he must be forced to renounce his citizenship or we have to denounce his citizenship in entirety because he is an illegality and ought to be refused visa at the embassy … . He even ought to go ahead and denounce his Ghanaian citizenship because we would not allow someone who is gay and has married under gay laws to come and contaminate our people here. It is unclear whether Caesar is in possession of another citizenship (noting that Ghanaian law does permit dual citizenship). That said, the actions of Ampaw and the reaction of the Ghanaian public have effectively rendered Caesar persona non grata in his home country. Should the government be susceptible to the pressure, they have potentially also turned Caesar into a stateless persons under international law. 3 Ad Hoc Deprivation There have also been occasional reports of further cases of arbitrary deprivation based on SOGIESC discriminatory grounds where LGBTIQ+ persons have been targeted for their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or sex characteristics. This is largely due to the state in question, or its representative officials, appearing to consider the LGBTIQ+ individual’s actions or existence as an existential threat to principles of national security or prescribed morality. A preliminary review of such cases suggests that generally SOGIESCbased discrimination leading to (risk of) statelessness takes place without such discrimination being formally embedded within nationality law, even when other anti-LGBTIQ+ provisions exist. Further research is required to examine the extent to which civil documentation officials or national intelligence services might be more likely to (abuse their authority to) deny LGBTIQ+ persons citizenship in jurisdictions where particular forms of SOGIESC are otherwise criminalised (eg through an anti-homosexuality bill). Presumably, however, LGBTIQ+ persons arbitrarily deprived of citizenship in socially conservative societies lacking legal protections against such discrimination would be practically challenged in appealing such decisions. In view of the above, it is difficult to assess how widespread such cases might be. However, social media indicates, as with the Caesar case above, how calls for stripping citizenship from sexual minorities can be a popular conservative trope in certain parts of the world. For example, in 2012 Ugandan religious leader Joseph Sserwada called for Chris Mubiru, administrator of the national soccer team, to be declared stateless when the latter was convicted of sodomy. 67 This case highlights how incitement to deprivation of citizenship is framed as a punishment for deemed immoral sexual behaviour. Although lacking concrete case information, 66 67 Devin Randall, ‘Ghanaian’s Gay Wedding Ignites Uproar and a Lawyer Calling for Revoked Citizenship’, Instinct Magazine (online, 5 September 2017) <https://instinctmagazine.com/ghanaians-gay-wedding-ignites-uproar-and-a-lawyer-callingfor-revoked-citizenship>. Godfrey Olukya, ‘Ugandan Pastor Seeks to Make Homosexual Stateless’, Africa Report (online, 31 December 2012) <https://www.theafricareport.com/6244/ugandan-pastor-seeksto-make-homosexual-stateless/>. 76