Uganda's Parliament passed a law on Tuesday making it a crime to identify as an LGBTQ person, giving Ugandan authorities sweeping powers to prosecute gay citizens, who already suffer from legal discrimination and mob violence. The bill, approved with 73% of the votes in favor, seeks to punish people in same-sex relationships or who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, intersex or queer with up to ten years in prison. .
More than 30 African countries, including Uganda, now ban same-sex relationships. The new law appears to be the first to outlaw the mere identification as LGTBIQ, according to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, condemned the new norm, which he has described as "scandalous and devastating". Türk said this is "probably one of the worst laws of his kind in the world" and warned that the core of the new law confuses consensual with non-consensual sex.
Supporters of the new law say it is necessary to punish a broader range of LGTBIQ activities, which they say threaten the traditional values of this conservative and religious East African nation.
In addition to same-sex sexual relations, the law prohibits the "promotion" and "incitement" of homosexuality, as well as the "conspiracy" to practice homosexuality.
Violations of the law carry severe penalties, including the death penalty for so-called "aggravated homosexuality" and life imprisonment for homosexual sex ("attempted homosexuality") or for "promoting homosexuality." According to the law, "aggravated homosexuality" implies homosexual relations with minors under 18 years of age or when the perpetrator is HIV-positive, among other categories.
"Our creator God is happy (with) what is happening (sic) (...). I support the bill to protect the future of our children," said Ugandan parliamentarian David Bahati during the bill's debate. "This is about the sovereignty of our nation, no one should blackmail us, no one should intimidate us." The legislation will now be sent to President Yoweri Museveni for his signature.
Frank Mugisha, a prominent Ugandan LGTBIQ activist, denounced the legislation as draconian. "The law criminalizes being an LGTBIQ person, but they are also trying to erase the entire existence of any LGTBIQ Ugandan," he said. "President Yoweri Museveni must urgently veto this terrible legislation, which was approved after a hasty vote. The law (...) amounts to a serious attack against LGTBIQ people and does not respect the Constitution of Uganda," he denounced this Wednesday in a A statement was made by Amnesty International's Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Tigere Chagutah.
Museveni, who has not ruled on the current proposal, has long been opposed to the rights of LGTBIQ people. For the project to be included in the country's penal code, it must still be ratified by Museveni, who last Thursday already described homosexuals as "deviations from the normal" and accused the West of wanting to impose this sexual inclination in Africa. In 2013 he already signed a law against this group, which called for life imprisonment for homosexuals, but the country's Constitutional Court ended up annulling that legal text, condemned by many Western countries, after arguing that there was not enough quorum during his vote in Parliament.
In recent weeks, the Ugandan authorities have cracked down on LGTBIQ people, after religious and political leaders denounced students being "recruited" to promote homosexuality in schools. This month, authorities detained a high school teacher in the eastern Jinja district on charges of "preparing girls for unnatural sexual practices." Subsequently, she was charged with gross indecency, after which she is in prison awaiting trial.
"In reality, this deeply repressive legislation will institutionalize discrimination, hate and bias against LGTBIQ people, including those who are perceived as LGTBIQ, and will block the legitimate work of civil society, public health professionals and community leaders. "said Chagutah of Amnesty International.
On Monday, the Ugandan police reported the arrest of six people whom they accused of running a ring that "was actively involved in recruiting young people for acts of sodomy."
Currently, in Uganda, a law from 1950 - eleven years before the country obtained its independence from the United Kingdom - prevails in its penal code, which penalizes carnal relations between people of the same sex with up to seven years in prison. Of the nearly 70 countries that criminalize same-sex relations in the world, almost half are in Africa, where most laws of this type are inherited from the colonial period.
