Friday 18 April 2014

First LGBT People to Stand Trial



The first trials of LGBT people under the new anti-homosexuality act are due to begin next month.


They are the first Ugandans to face trial on homosexuality charges, with an earlier case collapsing before it reached court and the majority of those arrested paying stiff fines to avoid prison.

The laws of Uganda are as corrupt as its politicians.

We can only imagine how afraid and alone Kim and Jackson must be feeling right now. We wish them strength. The world is watching.

Thursday 17 April 2014

Flora Seggane to be Deported



[UPDATE: Flora has been granted asylum until 2019.]

The UK's track record on LGBT human rights is shocking, murdering Jackie Nanyonjo and deporting Prossie N just in time to witness the new anti-homosexuality bill being introduced.

Now they're about to do the same to Flora Seggane, who fled persecution in Uganda in 2002:

A lesbian facing deportation to Uganda says she fears for her life if she is forced to return to her homeland. 
Flora Seggane, of Francis Road in Leyton, fled the country in 2002 and moved to the UK on a two-year working visa after being disowned by her family because of her sexuality. 
The 55-year-old claims her family previously tried to “cure” her sexuality by dosing her with medicines and she was forced her into marriage at the age of 18, enduring 20 years of abuse at the hands of her husband... 
Recounting her experiences in her homeland, she said: “I got caught at school with another girl and they told my parents. That’s when they started cutting my wrists and giving me medicines to try and cure me for being a lesbian.

Obviously the UK asylum system, in its infinite wisdom, reckons it will be much safer for her to return to Uganda now that she faces life imprisonment for her sexuality. 

Given the amount of sexual abuse occurring in UK detention centres, there may be little difference between where she is being held now and a prison in Uganda.

The UK's human rights system could be considered a joke, only there is nothing funny about it.


TAKE ACTION

Fax/Email the Home Office - Demand that Flora Seggane's removal is cancelled and that she is released from detention.

Home Secretary Theresa May

mayt@parliament.uk Fax: 020 7219 1145

Immigration Minister:

ministerforimmigration@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

And copy to the following Home Office & UKBA addresses:

citto@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
ukbapublicenquiries@ukba.gsi.gov.uk

Tuesday 15 April 2014

So, Uganda Doesn't Need Aid?


Whilst Museveni boycotts the EU summit, doing his best impression of a juvenile in a strop, rather than a world leader,  this excellent article by Bernard Tabaire poses the question: If Uganda didn’t need foreign aid, why have we been getting it then?

The chorus is still on. It is a din. We can do without foreign aid. They can keep their aid. Uganda does not need aid. Uganda is a sovereign country. It is a mantra, recited from up there where President Museveni reigns down to the intolerant bishops and pastors and on to the lowliest of bigots. 
We will have our anti-homosexuality law; they can keep their dollars, pound sterling, and euros. The great custodians of Ugandan (read African) sexuality and culture proclaim... 
Of course we need aid. That is why we have been taking it for decades. That is why we are taking it today. If we truly do not need aid anymore, let us say no to all aid – not just aid from the Western countries that are “imposing there (im)morality” on us. Let us say no to Chinese aid, to Russian aid, to South Korean aid.
If President Museveni had solemnly announced that we did not need aid anymore in calm times like, say, five years ago, I would have believed him. 

Very well put.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Shame on South Africa


As Ugandan police raid an HIV project assisting gay people, and deny that the bill is unconstitutional (despite it being unconstitutional), South Africa wades in to spread the love of Nelson Mandela by throwing its support behind the persecution of gay people:



Responding to a parliamentary question on whether he intended to clear South Africa's policy position regarding Uganda's anti-homosexuality law, Zuma said: "South Africa respects the sovereign rights of other countries to adopt their own legislation." 
"In this regard, through diplomatic channels South Africa engages with Uganda on areas of mutual concern bearing in mind Uganda's sovereignty," Zuma said through a written response to the National Assembly.

Hardly surprising from a country where a teenager was murdered at an LGBT 'rehabilitation' camp, and whose key ambassador to Uganda, Jon Qwelane, has himself been convicted of anti-gay hate speeches.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Ugandan Law Results in Teen Suicide

(Image by Melissatat)

Uganda's anti-gay laws have terrorised school children and now driven teenagers to suicide:


At least 17 gay people, with the majority of them being under the age of 25, have attempted to kill themselves over Uganda parliament introducing the anti-gay law... 
A Uganda gay teen has committed suicide over the homophobic law, it was reported today (7 April). 
The young man, who we will call Denis, overdosed on pills and swallowed rat poison around a month ago. 
For the past few weeks, he showed little signs of recovery as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He also lost his ability to speak. 
Last Thursday (3 April), Denis was pronounced dead. He was just 17 years old.

This is Scott Lively and David Bahati's Christian world, endorsed by one of the most corrupt governments on the planet.

Monday 7 April 2014

Nazis, Genocide, and Uganda

Homosexuals Rounded Up in Nazi Concentration Camps

Today marks 20 years since the genocide in Rwanda, and this excellent article brings home a point that Uganda needs to learn:


One of the worst calamities I know of was in my own family: The Hutu husband of a Tutsi cousin of mine — presumably fearing for his own life — followed an order from armed militiamen to kill her in front of their children. The act was so unspeakable that when Tutsi rebels finally stopped the genocide, another cousin, seeking vengeance, killed the father in front of the same children. I cannot imagine what scars those now-grown children carry... 
You can hear it in our maxims. “Intero nyirurugo ateye, niyo wikiriza” means “the tune the head of the household begins is what everyone in the house sings.” “Umwera uturutse ibukuru bucya wakwiriye hose” means that orders from above spread quickly, in the form of rules. “Order” and “law” translate the same: “itegeko.” A “law-giver,” an “order-giver” and an “authority” are each an “umutegetsi.”

Uganda, and many countries in the world, are singing the tune of dehumanisation.

Gay people are worse than 'pigs and dogs,' they are 'disgusting,' unnatural,' 'sinful.'

Take away a person's humanity and it starts to become a duty to mistreat them.

It is now law in Uganda for parents to turn against their gay children, for teachers to turn against their gay students, for brothers and sisters to turn against their gay siblings.

Uganda - you made this happen. You wilfully deafened your ears to reason and listened only to the ignorance of others.

This is the same language:


  • White people used against black people during slavery and apartheid
  • Nazis used against Jews, gypsies and the disabled during the Second World War
  • Hutus used against Tutsis
  • Christians used against Muslims (and vice versa) to incite holy wars and terror
  • Some men use against women as justification for beating them and denying them education


Uganda - Congratulations!

You have learned nothing from history.

Madiba would weep.

Sunday 6 April 2014

Police Raid US HIV Project


And so it begins. 

Ugandan police have raided a US-funded project which "conducts important research into Ebola, Marburg disease and HIV."


Police in Uganda have raided the offices of a US-funded project which provides health advice to homosexuals... 
The Makerere University Walter Reed Project in the capital Kampala announced it had suspended its operations after one of its Ugandan staff was briefly held by police. 
In a statement it said: "We are working with police to understand the circumstances under which this person was detained. 
"Until we have greater clarity as to the legal basis for the police action, the operations of the programme are temporarily suspended to ensure the safety of staff and the integrity of the programme." 
Police said they had been following the suspect after receiving reports he was involved in "gay-related activities".

More in the Huffington Post and GlobalPost.

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Fear and Arrests Follow Museveni's Bill


The arrests have already begun of gay people in Uganda:


Two men were arrested and tortured after they were accused of having gay sex in Uganda...
Under the new anti-homosexuality law, the two face life imprisonment.


[UPDATE: more on that story.]

Meanwhile, there are brave gay Ugandans who feel they have little left to lose, and are rallying to protest the bill:


After a local newspaper in February named him as a homosexual, Sam Opio went underground. 
He stopped strolling in the park with his boyfriend. He stopped going to nightclubs. He even scaled back appearances at the office of his local activist organization, Queer Group Uganda. 
"I had to lay low," says the 31-year-old Mr. Opio, who lives as a woman... 
But rather than stay in hiding, Mr. Opio and his fellow activists took the risky step of fighting back. They lobbied advertisers through online campaigns urging them to stop doing business with the tabloid. Within a week, Orange Uganda Ltd., a subsidiary of French telecommunications company France Télécom SA, pulled advertising out of the paper. Days later, Multichoice Group, a South Africa-based cable-television company, did the same. Others followed suit.

Whilst Museveni celebrates, people suffer.