By Melanie Nathan, August 22, 2023.
Ugandan police on Monday announced the arrest of four people for allegedly engaging in same-sex activity, three months after the introduction of anti-LGBTI legislation that has sparked international outrage and hunts by the Ugandan Government.
The law -- considered one of the harshest of its kind in the world -- contains provisions making "aggravated homosexuality" an offense that carries the death penalty, hence the nickname "THE KILL THE GAYS BILL" and penalties for consensual same-sex relations of up to life in prison. The Act has earned KILL THE GAYS BILL for much more than its attempt to hang gay people, but also because of the violence it serves to license by way of assaults and killings by mobs and vigilante groups.
Spokesperson, Hellen Butoto, for the Police noted that authorities had arrested four people including two women at a massage parlor in the eastern district of Buikwe on Saturday: "The police operation was carried out following a tip-off by a female informant to the area security that acts of homosexuality were being carried out at the massage parlor."
The United Nations, African Human Rights Coalition, foreign governments including the United States, and other global rights groups have condemned the new legislation, which was signed into law in May.
This month the World Bank announced it was suspending new loans to the East African nation, saying the law "fundamentally contradicts" the values espoused by the US-based lender. African Human Rights Coalition is at the forefront of safe sheltering LGBTQI+ Ugandans in hiding and also conducting relocations and extractions from the country, as more and more LGBTI people fear being outed and exposed by informants, including those in the ranks. The climate in Uganda, where LGBTI people are being hunted and set up by authorities, is akin to Nazi Germany, where people are being detained, tortured, beaten and killed, and the fear is exacerbated by Museveni's declared public intent and call to other to eradicate gays from the world. It is apparent that the Ugandan government is paying informants to infiltrate LGBTI groups or circles to OUT gay people's activities. Mundane activities such as clinics and support workshops, are touted and construed as "promoting homosexuality" and hence criminal under the new law. All of this serves as an attempt by the government to show the world and the people of Uganda that the new onerous law is justified. They are compelled to show results to justify this unsavory law. Hence they are hunting, setting up and all to force a false notion that LGBTI people, merely by virtue of their existence are nefarious and criminal.
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PIC: Copyright AHRC, 2023. Ugandans who have fled the merciless law eating a meal in a refugee camp
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