President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has signed a new law, one of the world’s toughest anti-LGBTQ measures, drawing widespread condemnation both domestically and internationally, according to Al Jazeera.
Anita Among, Speaker of Parliament, said in a Twitter post, “I now encourage the duty bearers under the law to execute the mandate bestowed upon them in the Anti-Homosexuality Act.” “The People of Uganda have spoken, and it is your duty to now enforce the law in a fair, steadfast, and firm manner,” the post read.
Same-sex relationships are illegal in more than 30 African countries, including Uganda, but the new law goes much further in discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, according to Al Jazeera.
It imposes a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality and calls for the death penalty for certain actions, such as engaging in gay sex while HIV positive. The law was approved despite opposition from Western governments, businesses, and human rights activists, according to Al Jazeera.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 was one of six pieces of legislation signed into law by Museveni on Sunday, according to the president’s office.
According to Al Jazeera, lawmakers passed a new draught of the legislation earlier this month, vowing to resist any outside interference in their efforts to protect Ugandan values from Western immorality.
The amended version stated that, while “engaging in acts of homosexuality” would be a felony punishable by life in prison, identifying as gay would not be a crime.
Pepe Julian Onziema, a human rights activist, as quoted by Al Jazeera from Kampala, said that he is “horrified” for himself, his community, and the state of human rights in the country.
“This act is a repeat of legislation that already exists, only this one takes it a notch higher in legalising hate, homophobia, transphobia and alienating a section of Uganda’s citizenry, so that worries me on many levels,” he said.
“This makes the already existing fear worse. It has triggered a lot of traumas of many LGBTIQ community members who have faced violence even before this law and in the whole passing of this law, there’s already been violence. This has already caused a lot of paranoia, fear and people reliving traumas of what this could mean,” Onziema said as quoted by Al Jazeera.
