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| Image: AFP via BBC News |
The Ugandan parliament just enacted a bill making it illegal to identify as LGBTQ. This law gives the government enormous authority to persecute Ugandan homosexual people, who already endure legal discrimination and mob violence. The newly enacted legislation looks to be the first to forbid anyone from identifying as homosexual, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ).
Advocates of the new law argue that it is necessary to criminalize a broader range of LGBTQ acts to protect the country's traditional values, which are conservative and religious. It is against the law to encourage homosexual behavior and to conspire with others to do so. The legislation imposes harsh punishments for violations, such as the death penalty for 'aggravated' homosexuality and life in jail for gay intercourse. President Yoweri Museveni will receive the measure to be signed into law.
A well-known LGBTQ activist from Uganda, Frank Mugisha, criticized the law as being oppressive and excessive since it sought to eliminate all Homosexual Ugandans from existence altogether. Advocates for the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill argue that a broader range of LGBTQ activities is in danger of undermining the country's traditional values as a conservative and religious country in East Africa. The law forbids encouraging homosexual behavior and prohibits conspiring to participate in it. Violations of the legislation are punishable by death for aggravated homosexuality and life in prison for gay intercourse.
President Yoweri Museveni, who has historically opposed LGBTQ rights and enacted an anti-Gay law in 2013 that was denounced by Western nations before being overturned by a local court for procedural reasons, is anticipated to sign the measure into law. After religious leaders and politicians claimed that students were being recruited into homosexuality in schools, Ugandan authorities have cracked down on LGBTQ people. A secondary school teacher was recently detained in the eastern district of Jinja for allegedly grooming young girls into unnatural sex practices.
SOURCE: Reuters
