Ugandan president says anti-LGBTQ+ bill imposing death penalty needs ‘strengthening’
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has refused to sign a sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ bill that imposes the death penalty until it’s ‘strengthened’.
Last month, Uganda’s parliament passed sweeping legislation that threatens punishment as severe as death as well as life-long jail terms, ‘rehabilitation’ and eye-watering fines for various LGBTQ+ offences.
Activists say simply identifying as LGBTQ+ is now a punishable offence, while those convicted of the lofty charge of ‘aggravated homosexuality’ will be killed.
The bill, which passed 387 to two, also punishes anyone who even leases out a property to an LGBTQ+ person or any entities that ‘promote’ queer rights.
But now the proposal, called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) 2023, will be sent back to parliament for ‘strengthening’, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party said last Thursday.
The president, who is chair of the ruling party, told NRM MPs at the Kololo Independence Grounds in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, that he intends to sign the act into law.
But he, among other undisclosed changes, wants to allow people who voluntarily renounce being queer to be ‘rehabilitated’.
He congratulated lawmakers and religious leaders for taking what he called a ‘strong stand’ against the West.
‘It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists,’ he said in a speech aired by the public broadcaster, UBC Uganda.
‘Those imperialists have been messing up the world for 600 years causing so much damage.’
The president’s spokesman, Sandor Lyle, added on Twitter: ‘The President told the members that he had no objections to the punishments but on the issue of rehabilitation of the persons who have in the past been engaged in homosexuality but would like to live normal lives again.’
The bill’s return came after Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka urged for an ‘amnesty for people who have carried out criminal activities of treasonous nature against this country’, the NRM quoted him as saying.
‘A similar provision would be provided in this law to ensure that a person who comes out on his own is not criminalised,’ he said.
The president added: ‘I agree with the bill but my original problem is the physiologically disoriented person.
‘What you are saying is that the law doesn’t recognise him as long as he does not act. But how do you provide for him to come out?’
Vice president Jessica Alupo echoed this, the NRM said, as she urged MPs to pass the amended bill.
‘What is clear here is that no one of us here supports homosexuality and nobody has intentions to support it,’ she said.
Jide Macaulay, an openly gay British-Nigerian living in London and founder of the House of Rainbow, feels the bill is a ‘distraction’ from more pressing issues.
‘The AHB is the work of fundamentalist religious groups both in Uganda and the West,’ the Christian minister told Metro.co.uk.
‘We know that the same people who pushed this 2023 also did in 2009. The bill is also a distraction from the political abuse and cover-up of missing people especially political opposition to the ruling party.’
Macaulay said that international pressure is vital, and is one of more than 2,300 petition signatories calling for a UK travel ban on anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers.
‘I signed the petition because it is not just the right thing to do but to remind homophobic Ugandans that they cannot hide behind the law and religion to promote hatred of already marginalised people,’ he said.
‘Putting international pressure is important as we cannot sit back and allow their bigotry in places like the UK where LGBTIQ have freedom, legal protection and also a place of safety for LGBTIQ Ugandans.’
Such anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and campaigners have long drawn support from religious leaders as well as being pumped with money from right-wing Christian groups in the US.
‘It goes against all the teachings of Christ, who asked his followers to love their neighbours,’ Macaulay said.
‘Sadly in Uganda, they are teaching that queer neighbours are not worthy of love and inciting religious hatred and ignorance.’
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