The brand new legislation additionally imposes life imprisonment as punishment for anybody discovered to have carried out a sexual act with an individual of the identical gender, and as much as seven years in jail for “an try to commit the offense of homosexuality.”
“The folks of Uganda have spoken,” tweeted parliamentary speaker Anita Annet Amongst, saying that President Yoweri Museveni had signed the laws. “I now encourage the responsibility bearers underneath the legislation to execute the mandate bestowed upon them within the Anti-Homosexuality Act.”
Uganda’s parliament initially handed the invoice in March nevertheless it was returned to legislators by a presidential veto. The ultimate invoice, authorized by Museveni, stays largely the identical however now not features a requirement for folks to report gay exercise or criminalizes the mere figuring out as LGBTQ+.
Its passage into legislation Monday sparked concern and confusion amongst LGBTQ+ Ugandans, a lot of whom have already fled the nation.
“The information implies that I’ll by no means see dwelling once more,” mentioned Kwame, 32, a homosexual asylum seeker chatting with The Washington Publish by cellphone from Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. His title has been modified to guard his id.
“I left Uganda in 2018; it was a scary time for me. I really feel the concern, like that morning I ran away from my dwelling. I’m within the refugee camp in the mean time and by no means felt so disillusioned in my life,” he mentioned.
“I really feel extraordinarily scared,” mentioned Jude, 38, who requested to be recognized solely by his first title to guard his id, talking by cellphone from the identical refugee camp as Kwame on Monday.
“It’s a tragedy on our story and full neighborhood,” he mentioned. “I’ve no choice in Uganda.”
Based on the Human Dignity Belief, a London-based nongovernmental group that displays the authorized standing of LGBTQ+ folks in several nations, same-sex exercise has been punishable by life imprisonment in Uganda since 1950, when the legislation was inherited from British colonial statues. The group mentioned there may be substantial proof of the earlier legislation getting used to arrest and arbitrarily detain LGBTQ+ folks, however precise prosecutions are uncommon.
Western officers and nongovernmental organizations condemned the act, with some arguing that Uganda’s stigmatization of LGBTQ+ folks threatened the well being of individuals dwelling with HIV there. “Uganda’s progress on its HIV response is now in grave jeopardy,” mentioned Winnie Byanyima, government director of UNAIDS, in a joint assertion signed additionally by the leaders of the International Fund to Struggle AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Aid.
“LGBTQI+ folks in Uganda more and more concern for his or her security and safety, and growing numbers of individuals are being discouraged from looking for very important well being providers for concern of assault, punishment and additional marginalization,” they mentioned.
Variations of Monday’s laws focusing on LGBTQ+ folks have been round in Uganda since 2009. In 2014, Museveni’s authorities handed an analogous legislation, whose first iteration included the demise penalty for some offenses — however was struck down by the court docket for not following due parliamentary course of.
Niha Masih contributed to this report.
