This doesn't change the fact that the laws on the books are the laws on the books. Even if as a foreigner things are "safe in practice", that's not a guaranteed

This doesn't change the fact that the laws on the books are the laws on the books. Even if as a foreigner things are "safe in practice", that's not a guaranteed evaluation if the law still criminalizes it. Just because the people you know are safe doesn't protect a possible convention goer who gets a bad run in with the local police and that can result in very bad consequences (prison time) just because they wanted to attend a convention (and raises questions on why a grant for the convention was approved to begin with, given safety is a relevant factor for these). Taking a quick glance at the Wikipedia page about LGBTQ rights in Africa[0] (going for the broad continent page here to see if there are other, less likely to cause problems, candidates for hosting locations), Tanzania is explicitly listed as "Punishable by prison" on the map, which the article text confirms. More broadly speaking, it would seem most of the countries in Africa have a poor track record on LGBTQ rights except for South Africa (although I'd not be surprised if any of the countries listed in grey on the map would've caused less problems with the grant approval, with "no laws either way" not being amazing but at least not inherently discriminatory). This begs the rather obvious question: why not organize in South Africa (or again, any of the more lenient countries), why does it have to be in Tanzania once these issues were brought to light. The PSF clearly has standards they wanted to adhere to for these things and wanting a guaranteed safe space for contributors of all walks of life seems to be an important one. I understand the complications on this one and why the usual process resulted in it being kicked upstairs. Which yes, does suck for the organizers, but again, Tanzania was chosen here and they even admit in the post that preliminary feedback caused a negative response surrounding event safety, so moving the event ought to have been considered with that in mind. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Africa