a raid takes place and people get beaten, there is money that is received from donors. “…GALZ organized the raids. At least this is what we as members think, that they do it to get money. That way, they can also get enough funding to enable them to assist the members. Most members have beliefs that GALZ has connections with state security agencies with whom they arrange to come at a certain time and do such and such. For instance, when someone is arrested and GALZ handles the case, the member gets released. So most members have the idea that GALZ has connections with the police”. – Member. This perception is buttressed by the fact that when most of the raids happened, key staff members of GALZ would have already left the venue. Thus according to this line of thought, they are responsible for tipping whoever comes to raid the venue. The members also argued that the GALZ staff never get hurt in these raids, therefore it is possible that they would have known in advance that it was going to happen. A participant in an FGD had this to say about the issue: “Usually people talk about this informally. For instance, we can talk about this in our community, one could say that for the last raid, the director (name given) was responsible. How come when he left, that’s when we were beaten. He may not have even known about it, but these speculations would be amongst the members. This is worsened by the fact that sometimes there is no communication between staff and the members.” – Gay Member. 42 An Assessment of the impact of state sanctioned and unsanctioned raids on GALZ premises and gatherings