In a “controversial” move, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s strictest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”.
The move has attracted the ire of Western countries including the potential risk of facing sanctions from aid donors.
Reacting on the issue, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States is deeply troubled by Uganda’s passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law that undermines the human rights, prosperity, and welfare of all Ugandans.
The United States urges the government of Uganda to refrain from implementing laws that undermine human rights.
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) threatens the lives of its people as well as the country’s prosperity. The United States urges the immediate repeal of the AHA to protect the human rights of all Ugandans. https://t.co/3djhKSJ0F4
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 30, 2023
“The department of state will develop mechanisms to support the rights of LGBTQI+ individuals in Uganda and to promote accountability for Ugandan officials and other individuals responsible for, or complicit in, abusing their human rights,” he said.
“I have also directed the department to update our travel guidance to American citizens and to U.S. businesses as well as to consider deploying existing visa restrictions tools against Ugandan officials and other individuals for abuse of universal human rights, including the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” he added.
US President Joe Biden on Monday slammed Uganda president Yoweri Museveni for signing a new anti-homosexuality law, and called it a “tragic violation of universal human rights”. US President Biden also demanded its immediate repeal.
The US President said that no one should live in fear for their life or be subjected to violence and discrimination.
Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes further.
It stipulates capital punishment for “serial offenders” against the law and transmission of a terminal illness like HIV/AIDS through gay sex. It also decrees a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality.
“The Ugandan president has today legalised state-sponsored homophobia and transphobia,” said Clare Byarugaba, a Ugandan rights activist.
United States President Joe Biden called the move “a tragic violation” of human rights and said Washington would evaluate the implications of the law “on all aspects of U.S. engagement with Uganda.”
“We are considering additional steps, including the application of sanctions and restriction of entry into the United States against anyone involved in serious human rights abuses or corruption,” he said.
“The enactment of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act is a tragic violation of universal human rights – one that is not worthy of the Ugandan people, and one that jeopardises the prospects of critical economic growth for the entire country. I join with people around the world – including many in Uganda – in calling for its immediate repeal. No one should have to live in constant fear for their life or be subjected to violence and discrimination. It is wrong,” Biden said in an official statement.
Biden also said that ever since the Anti-Homosexuality Act was introduced, reports of violence and discrimination targeting Ugandans who are or are perceived to be LGBTQI+ are increasing.
A presidential photo of Museveni showed him signing the law with a golden pen at his desk. The 78-year-old has called homosexuality a “deviation from normal” and urged lawmakers to resist “imperialist” pressure.
A local organisation, Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, and 10 other individuals later filed a complaint against the law at the constitutional court, one of the petitioners, Busingye Kabumba, told Reuters.
Museveni had sent back the original bill passed in March, asking parliament to tone down some provisions. But his ultimate approval was not seen as in doubt in a conservative country where anti-LGBTQ attitudes have hardened in recent years, in part due to campaigning by Western evangelical church groups.
Uganda receives billions of dollars in foreign aid each year and could now face adverse measures from donors and investors, as happened with a similar bill nine years ago.
With inputs from agencies
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