‘Deeply troubling’: UN rights chief on Uganda anti-gay bill

KAMPALA, (AP):

The United Nations (UN) rights chief on Wednesday urged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to block an anti-LGBTQ bill that prescribes harsh penalties for some homosexual offences, including death and life imprisonment.

“The passing of this discriminatory bill – probably among the worst of its kind in the world – is a deeply troubling development,” Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.

And in the US, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said if the law were enacted Washington would “have to take a look” at imposing economic sanctions on Uganda. He noted that this would be “really unfortunate” since most US aid is in the form health assistance, especially anti-AIDS assistance.

Uganda’s legislature passed the bill late Tuesday in a protracted plenary session during which last-minute changes were made to the legislation that originally included penalties of up to 10 years in jail for homosexual offences.

In the version approved by lawmakers the offence of “aggravated homosexuality” now carries the death penalty. Aggravated homosexuality applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable people.

According to the bill, a suspect convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” can be jailed for 14 years, and the offence of “attempted homosexuality” is punishable by up to 10 years.

The offence of “homosexuality” is punishable by life imprisonment, the same punishment prescribed in a colonial-era penal code criminalising sex acts “against the order of nature”.

The bill was introduced last month by an opposition lawmaker who said his goal was to punish “promotion, recruitment and funding” related to LGBTQ activities in this East African country where homosexuals are widely disparaged.

The bill now goes to Museveni, who can veto or sign it into law. He suggested in a recent speech that he supports the legislation, accusing unnamed Western nations of “trying to impose their practices on other people.”

“If signed into law by the president, it will render lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are,” Turk, the UN rights chief, said in the statement. “It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other.”