The Ugandan parliament on Tuesday passed a law making it a crime to identify as LGBTQ, handing authorities broad powers to target gay Ugandans who already face legal discrimination and mob violence.
More than 30 African nations, including Uganda, already ban same-sex relations. The new law appears to be the first to outlaw merely identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ), Human Rights Watch said.
Supporters of the new law say it is needed to punish a broader array of LGBTQ activities, which they say threaten traditional values in the conservative east African nation.
Photo: AP
In addition to same-sex intercourse, the law bans promoting and abetting homosexuality, as well as conspiracy to engage in homosexuality.
Violations draw severe penalties, including death for so-called aggravated homosexuality and life in prison for gay sex.
Aggravated homosexuality involves gay sex with people under the age of 18 or when the perpetrator is HIV positive, among other categories, according to the law.
“Our creator God is happy [about] what is happening... I support the bill to protect the future of our children,” Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati said during debate on the bill.
“This is about the sovereignty of our nation, nobody should blackmail us, nobody should intimidate us,” he said.
The legislation is to be sent to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to be signed into law.
Amnesty International yesterday urged Museveni to reject the bill, saying it was “a grave assault” on LGBTQ people.
“This ambiguous, vaguely worded law even criminalizes those who ‘promote’ homosexuality,” Amnesty’s east and southern Africa director Tigere Chagutah said.
Museveni “must urgently veto this appalling legislation,” Amnesty said, adding that it would “institutionalize discrimination, hatred and prejudice” against the LGBTQ community.
The discussion about the bill in parliament has been laced with homophobic language and Museveni himself last week referred to gay people as “these deviants.”
Frank Mugisha, a prominent Ugandan gay rights advocate, denounced the legislation as draconian.
“This law is very extreme and draconian... It criminalizes being an LGBTQ person, but also they are trying to erase the entire existence of any LGBTQ Ugandan,” he said.
Museveni has not commented on the current proposal, but he has long opposed LGBTQ rights and signed an anti-LGBTQ law in 2013 that Western countries condemned before a domestic court struck it down on procedural grounds.
In recent weeks, Ugandan authorities have cracked down on LGBTQ people after religious leaders and politicians alleged students were being recruited into homosexuality in schools.
This month, authorities arrested a secondary-school teacher in the eastern district of Jinja over accusations of “grooming of young girls into unnatural sex practices.”
She was subsequently charged with gross indecency and is in prison awaiting trial.
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