Uganda passes regulation to criminalize ‘gay-sex’

In a transfer that has alarmed human rights advocates, Uganda’s parliament has handed a brand new regulation that criminalizes mere identification as LGBTQ. The enactment of this regulation grants the authorities intensive jurisdiction to single out homosexuals in Uganda, who’re already subjected to authorized bias and brutality from the general public. Whereas same-sex relationships are already prohibited in over 30 African nations, together with Uganda, this laws is distinctive in prohibiting identification as a member of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Proponents of the regulation assert that it’s essential to safeguard conventional beliefs on this conservative and religious East African nation. Those that breach the regulation may face extreme penalties, akin to capital punishment for acts of “aggravated homosexuality” and lifelong incarceration for participating in gay exercise. The invoice will now be despatched to President Yoweri Museveni for his signature, who has lengthy opposed LGBTQ rights and signed an anti-LGBTQ regulation in 2013 that was later struck down.

In accordance with Human Rights Watch, a brand new regulation handed by Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday makes it unlawful to self-identify as LGBTQ, thereby empowering authorities to single out homosexuals who’re already victims of authorized bias and vigilante assaults. This laws is the primary of its type to criminalize the mere act of figuring out as lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, or queer.

Greater than 30 African international locations, together with Uganda, already ban same-sex relations. Supporters of the brand new regulation argue that it’s crucial to guard conventional values within the conservative and non secular East African nation. The laws additionally bans selling and abetting homosexuality in addition to conspiracy to have interaction in homosexuality.

The regulation stipulates that people who contravene it might be topic to stringent penalties, akin to capital punishment for “aggravated homosexuality,” and lifelong imprisonment for participating in homosexual sexual exercise. The regulation’s definition of aggravated homosexuality contains sexual encounters between people under the age of 18 and between a perpetrator who’s HIV-positive and their associate, amongst different circumstances.

Lawmaker David Bahati expressed his assist for the invoice in the course of the legislative dialogue, stating, “Our creator God is proud of what is occurring… I endorse the invoice to safeguard our youngsters’s future.” Moreover, he emphasised that “that is concerning the independence of our nation; nobody ought to coerce or bully us.”

The brand new laws will probably be despatched to President Yoweri Museveni for his signature, who has lengthy opposed LGBTQ rights and signed an anti-LGBTQ regulation in 2013 that was later struck down on procedural grounds.

Ugandan LGBTQ activists have denounced the laws as excessive and draconian. Over the previous few weeks, there was a clampdown on LGBTQ people by Ugandan authorities following accusations from spiritual leaders and politicians that faculties have been recruiting college students into homosexuality. This month, officers arrested a highschool trainer within the Jinja district of jap Uganda on costs of “grooming younger ladies into unnatural sexual practices.”