Uganda - Tightening controls on NGOs

Two weeks after controversially winning a fifth term, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has signed another repressive law which restricts the operations of thousands of NGOs working in the country.

Adrian Juuko, executive director of Ugandan NGO Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), said activists were worried about provisions that will prohibit an estimated 11,000 NGOs from doing anything that is against “the interests of Uganda” and the “dignity of Ugandans”.

Nicholas Opiyo, executive director of Ugandan civil liberties group Chapter Four said the law promotes “the erroneous view of the sector as a security threat rather than a development sector”, adding under it NGOs required a state-issued permit.

“The use of the term ‘dignity’ threatens organisations working on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues,” Juuko told IPS, stressing this clause could suggest that Uganda “would rather maintain its dignity than accept homosexuality”. He said the passage of the legislation “may be another way of reintroducing the nullified Anti-Homosexuality Act as it would equally affect organisations providing services to LGBTI persons or advocating for decriminalisation of same sex relations.” 

“Passage of this flawed bill into law could not come at a worse time,” Asia Russell, executive director of Health Global Access Project explained, adding that “Government threats, harassment and intimidation against Ugandan civil society, media, and the opposition is intensifying. In the immediate aftermath of widely criticised elections, President Museveni is throwing fuel on the fire.”

Gay Africa

Ireland overwhelmingly passed the same-sex marriage referendum by 1,201,607 votes to 734,300 – a total of 62.1 percent yes to 37.9 percent no. It’s difficult to imagine that only a couple of decades ago Irish police used to raid bars and nightclubs. Not to confiscate drugs or arrest the drunk and disorderly – but to remove condom vending machines off restroom walls. Ireland, a predominantly conservative Catholic country has proved that within a generation things can change. Ireland is no longer a theocracy where the church determined social policies. Tolerance can beat dogmatism. And equality can triumph over injustice. Especially with a formerly taboo subject like homosexuality.

It is disappointing the same cannot be said for much of Africa. The mere fact that 34 countries will still arrest and prosecute those it suspects of homosexual activity speaks for itself. In Somalia or Mauritania you might not be sent to jail for being gay – but put to death instead.

Uganda enacted the Anti-Homosexuality Act just last year yet South Africa was the first in the world to safeguard sexual orientation as a human right in its constitution and in 2006 gave the green light for same sex marriage through legislation in the Civil Union Bill.

It’s a sad indictment of our society that people are being persecuted for something that is in as much a person’s control as their choice of parents or skin colour.

Cameroon's Homophobia

It's not safe to be gay or support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersexual (LGBTI) rights in Cameroon, according to a new report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). The report, presented Wednesday in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, shows that violence against the LGBTI community and its advocates has increased significantly over the last few years.

Cameroon is one of 38 African countries where homosexuality is still illegal. Violators of section 347 of the country's penal code, which bans "consensual sexual relations between persons of the same sex," face heavy fines and up to five years in jail. Gay men and women and LGBTI rights activists in Cameroon are at risk of having their homes broken into or burned, the report said. They are also subject to constant threats and intimidation via text message and social media. The FIDH report accuses Cameroon's Catholic and Muslim communities of fueling the anti-gay sentiment. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Yaoundé reportedly told FIDH researchers that, "homosexuality is a defect." Simon-Victor Tonye Bakot, the former Archbishop of Yaoundé, was vehemently anti-gay and blamed homosexuals "for the misery in Cameroon and the unemployment of our graduates." He also called same-sex marriage a "crime against humanity."
Cameroon's media have carried out their own anti-gay witch-hunt. In 2006, three newspapers published a list of "The top 50 gay public figures."

In August 2013, a government spokesman told journalists gathered at a press conference that the great majority of Cameroonians condemn homosexuality "because their religious beliefs are incompatible with homosexuality," and said, "the president's duty is to respect the will of the people and to enforce the current law." The government reiterated its stance in January 2014, declaring it would not repeal a law endorsed by the majority of the people.

Yves Yomb, who runs Alternatives-Cameroun, the country's oldest LGBTI rights group said "Every time we meet government officials to talk to them about violations of LGBT rights in Cameroon we're told there is no evidence."

Eric Ohena Lembembe, an outspoken journalist and gay rights activist who was tortured and killed in his home in July 2013, just weeks after he criticized government inaction over the threat posed by "anti-gay thugs." Lembembe's neck and feet were broken, and his face, hands, and feet were burned with an iron. The case, which shocked the international community, still hasn't been solved.

Alternatives-Cameroun, which was established in Douala in 2006, has weathered its own share of homophobic hatred. The group's headquarters were torched in 2013

Homophobia increasing

Kenya's penal code says any person "who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" is guilty of a felony and can be jailed for 14 years.

Aden Duale, the majority leader from President Uhuru Kenyatta's ruling Jubilee coalition said 595 cases of homosexuality had been investigated in Kenya since 2010.

He stated homodexuality is ”... as serious as terrorism. It's as serious as any other social evil," referring to a spate of attacks by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab carried out in retaliation for Kenya's intervention in neighbouring Somalia.

"Can't we just be brave enough, seeing that we are a sovereign state, and outlaw gayism and lesbianism, the way Uganda has done?" another legislator Alois Lentoimaga said.

Anti-gay groups have emerged in Kenya after Nigeria and Uganda toughened up laws against homosexuals. Nigeria has outlawed same-sex relationships. Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh has said homosexuals are "vermin" and must be fought like malaria-causing mosquitoes.

One of these groups, The Save Our Men Initiative, has said it is launching a "Zuia Sodom Kabisa" campaign, meaning "prevent Sodom completely" in Swahili, to "save the family, save youth, save Kenya".

Homosexuality in Africa is illegal in 37 countries there.

From here

US Pastor Behind Uganda's Anti-Gay Law

In late February, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the nation’s harsh new anti-gay bill into law, he claimed the measure had been “provoked by arrogant and careless western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality.” What he failed to mention is that the legislation—which makes homosexuality a crime punishable by life in prison in some cases—was itself largely due to Western interlopers, chief among them a radical American pastor named Scott Lively.


Lively, a 56-year-old Massachusetts native, specializes in stirring up anti-gay feeling around the globe. In Uganda, which he first visited in 2002, he has cultivated ties to influential politicians and religious leaders at the forefront of the nation’s anti-gay crusade. Just before the first draft of Uganda’s anti-gay bill began circulating in April 2009, Lively traveled to Kampala and gave lengthy presentations to members of Uganda’s parliament and cabinet, which laid out the argument that the nation’s president and lawmakers would later use to justify Uganda’s draconian anti-gay crackdown—namely that Western agitators were trying to unravel Uganda’s social fabric by spreading “the disease” of homosexuality to children.
“They’re looking for other people to be able to prey upon,” Lively said, according to video footage. “When they see a child that’s from a broken home it’s like they have a flashing neon sign over their head.”

Lively is not the only US evangelical who has fanned the flames of anti-gay sentiment in Uganda. As they lose ground at home, where public opinion and law are rapidly shifting in favor of gay equality, religious conservatives have increasingly turned their attention to Africa. And Uganda, with its large Christian population, has been particularly fertile ground for their crusade. Journalist (and past Mother Jones contributor) Jeff Sharlet has reported at length on the Family, a politically connected US-based ministry, which promotes hard-line social policies in the East African nation.

 But, according to Ugandan gay rights activists, Lively has played an unparalleled role in fostering the climate of hate that gave rise to Uganda’s anti-gay law. “The bill is essentially his creation,” says Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of gay rights organizations. Mugisha’s group has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in US federal court, accusing Lively of international crimes against humanity on the grounds that he and his Ugandan allies allegedly conspired to deprive gay Ugandans of basic human rights.

 “These people had never heard of anything called the gay agenda,” recalls Anglican priest Kapya Kaoma. “But Lively told them that these predators were coming for their children. As Africans hearing it for the first time, they believed it was true—and they were burning with rage.”

 Lively, who is currently running for governor of Massachusetts as an independent, calls the allegations “ridiculous.” “Basically, a Marxist law firm in New York City is trying to shut me up because I speak very articulately about the pro-family issues,” he says. But video obtained by Mother Jones—including footage of Lively’s 2009 presentation and a little-known follow-up meeting where influential Ugandans resolved to petition parliament for a harsh new law against homosexuality—lends credence to the allegations that Lively’s fierce message paved the way for the nation’s anti-gay crackdown.

Taken from a lengthy article here plus several video clips