Fri 25 Dec 2009 In: International News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Pressure by glbt organisations, human rights groups and western nations appears to be finally having a positive effect on Uganda's proposed laws to imprison or put to death homosexuals. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni As it stands the bill envisages gay men and lesbians being sentenced to life imprisonment for having sex. In cases of sex with minors or sexual acts leading to HIV infection, the penalty would be death. The bill also proposes that anyone who fails to report a homosexual act committed by others would face up to three years in jail. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni now says he will personally intervene to soften the bill, which is yet to be debated in Uganda's parliament. "We should not have an extreme position. The president will harmonize the two sides and address the concerns of the Europeans and our other development partners," said Museveni's spokesman. The president's late and reluctant statement comes after a number of Western states are believed to have threatened to withdraw aid to Uganda if the government passes the bill into law. There has also been an outcry from the country's small gay and lesbian community and the World Council of Churches has criticized the bill, saying it would run against basic Christian teaching by promoting hatred. Uganda's main opposition party, the Uganda People's Congress has also just come out against the bill, saying the state has no business interfering in what people do in their own bedrooms. Just over a week ago the anti-gay Jamaican singer Beenie Man, struck from next month's New Zealand and Australia's Big Gay Out concerts for his hate-filled lyrics, added fuel to Uganda's anti-gay movement by performing songs there which advocated slitting the throats of gays.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 25th December 2009 - 11:06pm