- Patience Atuhaire
- BBC News, Kampala
image source, Reuters
Ugandan MP John Musira wearing an anti-LGBT message.
Citizens who identify as gay in Uganda risk life in prison after the African nation’s Parliament passed a new bill to end same-sex sex.
The bill also includes the death penalty in certain cases.
“We are going to apply the law to make sure that homosexuals have no space in Uganda,” Musa Ecweru MP said during the approval debate, which was met with applause and chants.
An LGBT rights activist told the BBC that the debate around the bill has made raise fears of more attacks on gay people.
“There is a lot of blackmail. People are receiving calls telling them: ‘If you don’t give me money, I’ll report that you’re gay,'” the activist said.
This is one of the toughest laws against homosexuals in all of Africa.
Los Homosexual acts are already illegal in Uganda, but this bill introduces new criminal offences.
In addition to making merely identifying as gay illegal for the first time, friends, family, and community members have a duty under the law to go to law enforcement to report people who are in same-sex relationships.
The bill passed with broad support in the Ugandan Parliament on Tuesday night.
It has been condemned by the United Nations Organization and Amnesty International has described it as “appalling”, “ambiguous”, and “vaguely worded”.
“This deeply repressive legislation will institutionalize discrimination, hate and bias against LGBTI people, and block the legitimate work of civil society, public health professionals and community leaders,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International representative.
image source, AFP
Uganda’s visible LGBT community is small.
anti-homosexual sentiment
In the weeks leading up to the debate, anti-gay sentiment was prominent in the Ugandan media, an activist who preferred to remain anonymous told the BBC.
“Members of the community queer they have been blackmailed, extorted for money, and even lured into traps for mob attacks,” the activist said.
“In some areas even law enforcement is using the current environment to extort money from people they accuse of being gay. Some families are even reporting their own children to the police.”
The bill will now go to President Yoweri Museveni, who can choose to use their right to veto to maintain good relations with Western donors and investors, or make it law.
Museveni made several anti-gay comments in recent weeks and also criticized Western countries for putting pressure on Uganda on the issue.
Another gay rights activist accused the government of using the bill to distract the public from its mismanagement of the economy.
“They are trying to develop anti-gay rhetoric to divert attention from what is really important to Ugandans in general. There is no reason why there should be a bill criminalizing people who have consensual relationships with same-sex adults. sex,” activist Clare Byarugaba of Chapter Four Uganda told the BBC.
image source, AFP
A transgender woman in Uganda who was recently assaulted, watching the law debate on television.
What does the bill say?
The final version has yet to be officially released, but items debated in Parliament include:
- A person convicted of manipulating or trafficking children for the purpose of engaging them in homosexual activities faces life in prison
- Individuals or institutions that support or fund LGBT rights activities or organizations, or publish, broadcast and distribute progay media materials and literature, also face prosecution and imprisonment.
- Media groups, journalists, and publishers face prosecution and imprisonment for publishing, broadcasting, distributing any content that advocates gay rights or “promotes homosexuality.”
- Death penalty for what is described as “aggravated homosexuality”, that is, sexual abuse of a child, a disabled person or vulnerable persons, or in cases where a victim of homosexual assault is infected with an incurable disease.
- Property owners also risk jail time if their premises are used as a “brothel” for homosexual acts or any other sexual minority rights activity.
A small group of Ugandan parliamentarians in a committee considering the bill disagreed with its premise. They argue that the crimes that it seeks to classify are already contemplated in the country’s Penal Code.
In 2014, the Uganda Constitutional Court struck down another law that had toughened laws against the LGBT community.
The court ruled that the legislation be struck down because it had been passed by Parliament without the required quorum.
Las Same-sex relationships are prohibited in some 30 African countriesin which many people hold conservative religious and social values.
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