As a gay Ugandan, Frank Mugisha has endured insults from strangers, hate messages on his phone, police harassment and being outed in a tabloid as one of the country’s “top homos.” That may soon seem like the good old days.
Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a “person of authority” over the other partner, or if the “victim” is under 18, a conviction would result in the death penalty.
Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police within 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail — a scenario that human rights campaigners say would result in a witch hunt. Ugandans breaking the new law abroad would be subject to extradition requests.
“The bill is haunting us,” said Mugisha, 25, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups that would all be banned under the law. “If this passes, we will have to leave the country.”
Human rights groups within and outside Uganda have condemned the proposed legislation, which is designed to strengthen colonial-era laws that already criminalize gay sex. The issue threatened to overshadow the Commonwealth heads of government meeting that ended in Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday, with the UK and Canada both expressing strong concerns. Ahead of the meeting, Stephen Lewis, a former UN envoy on AIDS in Africa, said the law has “a taste of fascism” about it.
Within Uganda, however, deeply rooted homophobia, aided by a US-linked evangelical campaign alleging that gay men are trying to “recruit” schoolchildren, and that homosexuality is a habit that can be “cured,” has ensured widespread public support for the bill.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni earlier this month warned youths in Kampala that he had heard that “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa,” and said gay relationships were against God’s will.
“We used to say Mr and Mrs, but now it is Mr and Mr. What is that now?” he said.
In an interview, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the government was determined to pass the legislation, ideally before the end of the year, even if it means withdrawing from international treaties and conventions, such as the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and foregoing donor funding.
“We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that,” Butoro said, adding that he was personally caring for six “former homosexuals” who had been traumatized by the experience. “We believe there are limits to human rights.”
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