“Ugandan President Approves Controversial Anti-Homosexuality Law Punishing LGBT People with Death”

Ugandan President Youweri Museveni has on Monday approved a controversial anti-homosexuality law, according to leader Anita Annet Among in the Ugandan National Assembly.

She writes that on Twitter.

Thus, the highly controversial law, which among other things makes homosexual acts punishable by death, is now possible to enforce.

The law is one of the world’s strictest against LGBT people, and it has been condemned by the UN, Western governments, companies and human rights organisations, writes Reuters.

Calls for enforcement

Same-sex relationships were already illegal in Uganda, which they also are in 30 other African countries, but the new law goes much further in targeting lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers.

– I encourage those with a duty under the new law to carry out the mandate placed on them in the anti-homosexuality act. The people of Uganda have spoken, and it is now their duty to enforce the law in a fair, steadfast and firm manner, writes Among on Twitter.

Sent the law back

Mseveni was originally supposed to pass the law at the end of April, but then he sent it back to the National Assembly for a second assessment.

He did so not because he is not in favor of the death penalty for queers, but because queers whom the Ugandan authorities consider “rehabilitated” – that is, having given up their previous lives as queers – deserved a second chance, and that this had to be made clear in the new the law.

387 out of 389 representatives in parliament voted in favor when the bill was introduced in March, and the president then applauded the proposal.

– Risk being silenced

Frank Mugisha, director of the former LGBTQ+ organization Sexual Minorities in Uganda (SMUG), spoke in April to TV 2 from Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

– It is scary. LGBTQ+ people are considering fleeing the country. Here they risk losing their jobs and being silenced by their own families, Mugisha said then.