Uganda: parliament debates controversial anti-homosexuality law

The Ugandan parliament is due to debate on Tuesday a repressive law providing for up to ten years in prison for those who maintain homosexual relations, and denounced by human rights defenders.

The text targets anyone engaging in homosexual activity or claiming to be LGBTQ, in a country where homosexuality is already illegal.

“

,” Robina Rwakoojo, president of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which studied the bill, told AFP on Tuesday. of law.

“

,” she continued.

"Hate Speech"

This vote on this bill comes at a time when conspiracy theories on the subject abound on social networks, accusing obscure international forces of promoting homosexuality in Uganda.

A few days before the bill was examined by parliamentarians, President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the African country in the Great Lakes region with an iron fist since 1986, had called homosexuals “deviants”.

On March 17, the Ugandan police announced the arrest of six men for “

”.

Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, a parliamentarian belonging just like the head of state to the National Resistance Movement, declared for his part that he opposed the text, telling AFP that he wanted to "promote a

".

Adrian Jjuuko, a lawyer and human rights activist, said he hopes parliament "

".

Outcry beyond borders

Uganda has strict anti-homosexuality legislation - a legacy of colonial laws - but since independence from the UK in 1962 there have been no prosecutions for consensual homosexual acts.

In 2014, a Ugandan court blocked a bill approved by MPs and signed by President Museveni to punish same-sex relations with life in prison.

This text had caused an outcry beyond Ugandan borders, some rich countries having suspended their aid after its presentation to Parliament.

This vote in Uganda also comes in a context of virulent wave of homophobia in East Africa, where homosexuality is illegal and often considered a crime.