Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday ratified a controversial anti-homosexuality law, according to Leader Anita Anette Ambien of the Uganda National Assembly.
She writes it on Twitter.
Thus, the controversial law, which among other things makes homosexual acts punishable by death, can now be enforced.
The law is considered one of the world’s strictest against LGBT people, and has been condemned by the United Nations, Western governments, businesses and human rights organizations, according to Reuters.
calls for action
Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, and they also exist in 30 other African countries, but the new law goes further in targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gay men.
– I encourage those who have a duty under the new law to carry out the mandate given to them in the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The people of Uganda have spoken, and it is now their duty to enforce the law in a just, consistent and firm manner, Payne wrote on Twitter.
Re-law
Mseveni was originally supposed to pass the law at the end of April, but then sent it to the National Assembly for a second evaluation.
He did this not because he does not support the death penalty for gays, but because gays who the Ugandan authorities consider “rehabilitated”—that is, having given up their former lives as gays—deserved a second chance, and that this was to be spelled out in the new law.
387 of the 389 lawmakers voted in favor when the bill was introduced in March, and the proposal has since been applauded by the president.
Risk of gagging
Frank Mugisha, director of the former LGBTQ+ Sexual Minority Organization of Uganda (SMUG), spoke on April 2 to TV2 from Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
– it’s scary. LGBTQ+ people are considering fleeing the country. Here, Mugisha said, they risk losing their jobs and silencing their families.
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