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Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday passed some of the world’s toughest anti-gay laws, making some crimes punishable by death and up to 20 years in prison for people who identify as LGBTQ+.
The new legislation further cracks down on LGBTQ+ people in a country where same-sex relationships were already illegal – punishable by life imprisonment. It targets a range of activities and includes a ban on promoting and inciting homosexuality, as well as conspiracy to engage in homosexuality, Reuters reported.
Under the bill, the death penalty could be invoked for cases of “aggravated homosexuality” — a broad term used in law to describe sexual acts committed without consent or under duress against children, people with mental or physical disabilities, by a “serial offender,” or involving incest.
“A person who commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality and, if convicted, may face the death penalty,” read the amendments tabled by Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Chair Robina Rwakoojo.
Opposition lawmaker Asuman Basalirwa introduced the 2023 anti-homosexuality bill to parliament, saying it aims to “protect our church culture; the legal, religious and traditional family values of Ugandans against the acts likely to promote sexual promiscuity in this country.”
“The purpose of the bill was to enact comprehensive and enhanced legislation to protect traditional family values, our diverse culture, our beliefs, through all forms of same-sex sexual relations and the promotion or recognition of sexual relations prohibited between persons. of the same sex,” Basalirwa said on Tuesday.
Lawmaker Fox Odoi-Oywelowo spoke out against the bill, saying it “contradicts established international and regional human rights standards” because it “unfairly restricts the fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ individuals.”
Human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned earlier this month that the law would violate the rights of Ugandans.
“One of the most extreme features of this new bill is that it criminalizes people simply for being who they are, in addition to infringing on the rights to privacy, freedom of expression and association that are already under threat in Uganda ”, says researcher HRW Uganda. Oryem Nyeko said in a statement calling on politicians in the country to “stop targeting LGBT people for political capital”.
The bill is expected to eventually go to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for approval. Museveni last week mocked homosexuals as ‘deviants’.
Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is deeply rooted in the highly conservative and religious East African nation.
Uganda made headlines in 2009 when it introduced an anti-homosexuality law that included a death sentence for gay sex.
The country’s lawmakers passed a law in 2014, but they replaced the death penalty clause with a proposal for life in prison. That law was eventually scrapped.