Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Ugandan court gags anti-gay paper
The latest twist in Uganda’s hang the ‘homos’ saga was played out last week when the High Court in Kampala ordering Rolling Stone newspaper to stop publishing the names, photographs and addresses of people it says are gay. Alongside the photos, the paper urged the government: “Hang them.”
The court order came too late for the 26 already featured in two issues of the young newspaper that most people in the East African country have never heard of.
Frank Mugisha, director of gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda, told me last week that almost everyone outed by the paper, including himself, had since been attacked or harassed and that some were in danger of losing their jobs.
The same day I spoke to Frank I met Giles Muhame, the defiant 22-year-old editor of Rolling Stone, who now says he will find a way to “dodge the law” and work through a list he says he has of 100 gay men and women.
Muhame’s views will be abhorrent to many Western people of a similar age. Gays are “evil”. They “convert” children, they take drugs, they are akin to “terrorists”.
But his views are not uncommon among many young Africans. Homosexuality is illegal in 37 countries on the continent and gay people are mostly in the closet. In Uganda’s bars and cafes, I found a lot of support for Muhame and his paper.
This is the second time Uganda has caused uproar for the treatment of its fearful gay community. An anti-gay bill was tabled in its parliament last year proposing prison sentences for gays and the death penalty for “persistent” homosexuals.
Uganda gays feel threatened by bill
Being gay or lesbian in Uganda is illegal and those who are risk being locked away for up to 14 years. Now, a new parliamentary bill wants gay people to face even stiffer penalties and is proposing life imprisonment and even death sentences in some cases.
Pepe Julia Onziema and her partner, who asked that her identity be hidden, spend most of their time together — indoors. They are a lesbian couple living in Uganda where homosexuality is against the law. Pepe is also a gay rights activist in Kampala and is openly vocal about her sexuality and because of that she is often victim to discrimination and harassment.
“Myself I am at risk,” Onziema told Reuters Africa Journal “I can’t move on the streets as I used to, I can’t go to a shop … I have been picked off the streets, detained for sometime, ridiculed, intimidated, some money taken away from my wallet…”
David Bahati, an MP for Uganda’s ruling party, proposed the bill. “Homosexuality has become a huge issue in this country we know that it is not our values, it” not Ugandan, it’s a threat to our traditional family and the children of Uganda…”
The bill has the support of many Ugandans. Anti gay protests have been used to support the bill. The reaction from the west and human rights activists has been the opposite. Donors — who fund about a third of Uganda’s budget, have been piling on the pressure to get leaders to shelve the bill.
Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, said recently: “When I was at the Commonwealth conference, the Prime Minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays, Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays, when I go to New York when I was coming back, Assistant Secretary Carson rang me, what was he ringing to talk about? Somalia and gays.”
The bill also targets straight Ugandans who will face up to 7 years in prison for withholding information about homosexuals.
Everyone has the right to practice and explore their own sexuality. The realm of sexual orientation falls within a private sphere which the government, no matter how well-meaning it thinks its actions are, is not supposed to intrude into.
