Shame on Uganda

Uganda's parliament has adopted an anti-homosexuality bill that will see repeat offenders jailed for life. Barack Obama describing it as "odious" and Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu comparing it to apartheid. The European Union's diplomatic chief, Catherine Ashton, said the bill violated international human-rights charters to which Uganda was party. Leslie Lefkow of Human Rights Watch said the law was "abhorrent", and Amnesty International said the "wildly discriminatory legislation" was "a grave assault on human rights".

"Now anybody found practising, recruiting for or publicising homosexuality commits a felony," said Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo. An early version of the bill would have introduced the death sentence for anyone caught engaging in homosexual acts for a second time but that clause was dropped. While homosexuality was already illegal, the new bill increases penalties and also criminalises the public promotion of homosexuality -- including discussions by rights groups.

In 2011, prominent Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home after a newspaper splashed photos, names and addresses of gays in Uganda on its front page along with a yellow banner reading "Hang Them". The former head of Uganda’s national football team has reportedly been arrested for breaking the country’s laws against same-sex sexual activity with one of his team players in 2012. A British man, Bernard Randall, is currently facing trial in Uganda and a possible two-year sentence if convicted for "trafficking obscene publications" after police found pictures of him having gay sex.

The vote came a day after the Ugandan parliament passed a dress-code law banning anything deemed sexually suggestive. The anti-pornography bill will ban scantily dressed performers from Ugandan television and closely monitor what individuals watch on the Internet.

A Road to Freedom

The EU's top court has ruled that homosexuals from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal who fear imprisonment in their home country have grounds for asylum in EU member states.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) says asylum can be granted in cases where people are actually jailed for homosexuality in their home country. ECJ rulings apply to all EU members. The ECJ had been asked whether homosexuals could be considered a "particular social group" and whether criminalisation and possible imprisonment amounted to persecution.

The ECJ says laws specifically targeting homosexuals do make them a separate group. Under international law a particular social group with a well-founded fear of persecution can claim refugee status if the persecution amounts to a severe violation of human rights.

Homosexual acts are illegal in most African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana. But it is up to the national EU  authorities - in this case the Netherlands - to determine "whether, in the applicant's country of origin, the term of imprisonment... is applied in practice".

In June a report by Amnesty International said homophobic attacks had reached dangerous levels in sub-Saharan Africa and must stop.

Back to the Dark Ages

The American Family Research Council deserves its hate-group designation.

Many who have followed the human rights crisis for LGBT people in Uganda know that, in 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament to supplement laws that already banned homosexuality. The bill, quickly dubbed the “Kill the Gays” bill because of its provision of a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” also includes severe penalties for other actions and non-actions, including the “failure to disclose the offense” by anyone who might be aware of another person’s same-sex sexuality. Although the bill has not been yet passed, it has attracted harsh international condemnation, and many attacks on LGBT people and activists have been attributed to the public debates surrounding it.

Last month Uganda’s pious President Museveni delivered a speech in which he dedicated his country to God and renounced “the Satanic influence” of “the last 50 years of history.” Museveni called upon the deity to forgive the nation. Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has taken up the challenge of national repentance by promising passage of the “Kill the Gays” legislation as a “Christmas gift” to the people of Uganda.

 Christian conservative leaders in the U.S. are thrilled with what FRC has called an “inspirational moment for the [Ugandan] nation.” FRC President Tony Perkins tweeted a big, warm hug to President Museveni for “leading his nation in repentance” and thus helping to create a “nation prospered by God.” The FRC lavishes praise on Museveni and his government for proclaiming the kind of “faithfulness...that will raise Uganda’s status as a new power in Africa.” Museveni, dictator of Uganda, and aspiring president-for-life, obviously is a favorite of U.S.-based Christian Right leaders. Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church and the author of the bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life , who, in 2008, conferred on Uganda the label of  “purpose-driven nation.” In 2009, after first refusing to condemn the proposed anti-gay legislation, Warren capitulated, after initially saying that he didn’t want to interfere in Ugandan politics.

Apologists for the Christian Right often scold political opponents for misunderstanding the goals of Christian conservatives and especially for misrepresenting the movement as having theocratic ambitions in the U.S. However, messages such as the one sent by FRC, lauding Museveni as he dedicates his nation to their idea of God, illuminate Christian conservative leaders’ intense yearning for theocracy in America and, failing that, in states where American Christian conservatives wield some influence. It seems to clarify where America’s foremost Christian public policy and lobbying organization stands: firmly on the side of punishing lesbians, gay men, men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, even at the cost of their very lives.

This is certainly bad news for the people of Uganda. The Family Research Council are heaping approval on Museveni’s bid to defy “the West” on “traditional values,” eliminate “sexual immorality,” and rule Uganda according to biblical law.

Source

Gay rights come second to economics

The Nobel peace prize winner and president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has defended a law that criminalises homosexual acts, saying: "We like ourselves just the way we are..We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve..."

Liberian legislation classes "voluntary sodomy" as punishable by up to one year in prison, but two new bills have been proposed that would target homosexuality with much tougher sentences. One would amend the penal code to make a person guilty of a second-degree felony if he or she "seduces, encourages or promotes another person of the same gender to engage in sexual activities" or "purposefully engages in acts that arouse or tend to arouse another person of the same gender to have sexual intercourse", carrying a prison sentence of up to five years. The second bill would make gay marriage a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

The second bill was drafted by Jewel Howard Taylor, the ex-wife of the former president Charles Taylor, and she said "[Homosexuality] is a criminal offence. It is un-African...We consider deviant sexual behaviour criminal behaviour."

Homosexuality is already illegal in 37 African countries. In Uganda, a bill proposing custodial sentences for homosexuality is still being considered, although it no longer contains the provision for the death penalty. Ten women were recently arrested in Cameroon accused of being lesbians, while in Nigeria, homosexual activities are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Sirleaf desperately needs the support of other MPs to tackle other issues such as corruption, exploitation of the country's natural resources and mass youth unemployment. "If she tried to decriminalise the [current anti-gay] law it would be political suicide," said Tiawan S Gongloe, the country's former solicitor general. So Sirleaf is prepared to sacrifice the human rights of one group of workers for the sake of the economy. And to think Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel peace prize for her work in campaigning for women's rights!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/19/nobel-peace-prize-law-homosexuality

Gay solidarity

Bans against homosexuality in Uganda, and in many other countries of Africa, go back as far as the British colonial government, which was guided heavily on social issues by Christian missionaries. A few African countries, such as South Africa, have stripped away colonial-era prohibitions against homosexuality, but other countries, such as Uganda, are working in the opposite direction, adding heavier penalties to the laws that currently exist.

The current antihomosexuality bill under consideration would impose the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” committed by “serial offenders.” The bill made its first appearance in 2009, but was withdrawn last year after significant pressure from donor nations such as the United States, Britain and Sweden. President Obama called the bill “odious.”

The Ugandan Minister of Ethics Simon Lokodo has accompanied police to shut down a workshop in Entebbe for gay rights activists and to arrest its organizer. He told participants to leave or he would order the police to use force. "I have closed this conference because it's illegal,” Mr. Lokodo was quoted as saying by the Daily Monitor, a Ugandan newspaper. “We do not accept homosexuality in Uganda. So go back home."

Public assembly of gay people is not a crime under Ugandan law, although homosexuality itself is. Amnesty International condemned the raid of the gay-rights workshop and called on the Ugandan government to “end its outrageous harassment of people involved in lawful activities. This is an outrageous attempt to prevent lawful and peaceful activities of human rights defenders in Uganda,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary general in a statement. “The government of Uganda must protect all people against threats, violence, and harassment irrespective of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

christian dictatorships

Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill was introduced by parliament member David Bahati in October 2009. The bill seeks to eradicate homosexuality from Uganda and become a model for the rest of Africa. Among the proposals in the bill: prison terms for Ugandans who fail to report a homosexual within 24 hours; lifelong prison sentences for a single homosexual act; and the death sentence for a range of acts, including having gay sex while HIV-positive, having gay sex with a disabled person or being classified as a "serial offender" — that is, someone who has gay sex more than once.

Bahati is one of the Uganda leaders of an American evangelical movement called the Fellowship, or the Family — the secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians who wield considerable political influence, both in Washington and abroad. They support the idea of government being decided by small groups of elite leaders like Bahati, getting together and trying to conform government to their idea of Biblical law. A project to eradicate homosexuality in Uganda they hope will become a model for all of Africa.

American pastor Lou Engle, who leads a big Christian right group called The Call, said, "This is ground zero of the great war with homosexuality."

Bahati said that he wanted "to kill every last gay person."