The Ugandan Parliament passed a widely repressive law against the LGBTIQ+ community earlier this week. The text has been strongly condemned by human rights activists, while President Yoweri Museveni, who has labeled homosexuals “deviant”, is now being ordered by the international community, led by the UN and the United States, not to enact the text.
The UN, the United States, the United Kingdom and human rights NGOs, including Amnesty International, have called on Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to reject a law described as homophobic and extremely repressive approved by the Parliament of the East African country last Tuesday. March 21st.
The Ugandan deputies voted in favor of this text that provides harsh penalties for those who have homosexual relationships. The legislators have amended the original draft, which provided for up to 10 years in prison for homosexual people or who declare themselves as such. The final scope of the new penalties is not yet known.
But according to statements made on Tuesday by Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, a member of President Museveni’s party and one of the few deputies who has positioned himself against the text, the law “contains unconstitutional provisions and nullifies the achievements made in the fight against violence of genre”.
While the law must be signed into law by President Museveni before it can take effect, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has called on the Ugandan president not to do so.
“The passage of this discriminatory law, probably the worst of its kind in the world, is deeply troubling,” stated in a statementarguing that “if enacted by the president, this law will make lesbian, gay and bisexual criminals in Uganda for the mere fact of existing (…) It could give carte blanche to the systematic violation of almost all their human rights” he added.
For its part, the NGO Amnesty International stated that Museveni should “urgently veto this atrocious law”, adding that “(the text) would institutionalize discrimination, hatred and prejudice” against the LGBTIQ+ community.
“This vaguely worded and ambiguous law criminalizes even those who ‘promote’ homosexuality,” Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty’s director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said in a statement.
For its part, Washington warned of possible economic “consequences” if the law goes into effect. The financial repercussions “would be very unfortunate because so much of the financial assistance that we provide goes to health care,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
In a tweet, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, reinforced this position, also denouncing the passage of the law that challenges “the human rights of all Ugandans” and “could affect the fight against AIDS”.
The British Minister for Africa, Andrew Mitchell, was also “deeply disappointed” by the text, while the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s special envoy for LGBTIQ+ rights, Nicholas Herbert, reported his concern about the risk of increasing “discrimination and the persecution in Uganda” against members of the community.
“As many countries, including several on the African continent, move towards decriminalization, this is a deeply concerning step in the opposite direction,” Herbert said on Twitter.
Strong climate of homophobia and fake news
The discussion of the law occurs at a time when conspiracy theories on the subject proliferate on social networks, some accusing undetermined international forces of “promoting” homosexuality in Uganda.
Days before the parliamentarians studied the text, Museveni himself had described homosexuals as “deviant”. However, the 78-year-old leader, who has ruled since 1968, has often stated that the issue is not his priority and that he prefers to maintain good relations with his Western donors and investors.
The head of state “has historically been mindful of the damage caused by the bills, especially with regard to relations with the West and donor funding,” said Kristof Titec, an expert on East African affairs at the University of from Antwerp in Belgium.
Uganda has strict legislation against homosexuality, a legacy of colonial laws. But while there have been no prosecutions for consensual homosexual acts since UK independence in 1962, bigotry is rampant in the country.
Some citizens welcomed the passage of the law. “We are very happy. Culturally we do not accept homosexuality, lesbianism, LGBT. We cannot,” Abdu Mukasa, a 54-year-old resident, told AFP.
Last week, the police announced the arrest of six men for “practicing homosexuality” in Jinja, in the south of the country. Also, six other men were detained for the same reason on Sunday, police said.
With AFP and Reuters
