Box Turtle Bulletin

Contact These Uganda Polls About the Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Jim Burroway

November 25th, 2012

This list comes via Ugandan LGBT advocate Kasha Jacqueline. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill could come to a vote as early as this week. To be effective, please be polite, but also be firm. The best rule of thumb to observe would be to put yourself into their shoes and try to imagine the arguments that would appeal to you. Also remember that all Ugandan are as proud of their country as you are of yours. Insults will inevitably backfire, and it will be LGBT Ugandans suffering the consequences, not those who sit comfortably in countries far away lobbing emails and phone calls. Don’t given them propaganda that can be used against your brothers and sisters. Ugandan LGBT advocates also strongly advise that bringing up foreign aid is another sure-fire way to provoke a backfire.

For reference to specific parts of the bill, please refer to our detailed examination of the nineteen clauses of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, beginning here.

1. President: Yoweri Museveni

His Excellency, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni (Mr. President, subsequently)
Office of The President
Parliament Avenue
Telephone: +256 (0) 414 343 311
Fax: +256 (0) 414 436 102
E-mail: museveni@starcom.co.ug, aak@statehouse.go.ug

2. Secretary, Office of the President

Mrs. T. Kinaalwa
Tel. 041 4 233 717
Fax 041 4 256 143
Email: Ugandasecretary@op.go.ug

3.  Speaker of the Parliament: Rebecca Kadaga

Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga
Parliament of the Republic of Uganda
Tel: +(256) 377 000/150
Fax: +(256) 414 346 826

3. Prime Minister: Amama Mbabazi

Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi
Postal Building
Yusuf Lule Road
P.O. Box 341
Kampala
Phone: +(256) 414 254 252
Fax: +(256) 414 341 139
E-mail: ps@opm.go.ug
http://www.opm.go.ug/

4. The  Minister of Foreign Affairs:

Hon. Sam Kutesa
Email: mofa@starcom.co.ug
Tel:  +(256) 41-257 525/345 661/258 252
Fel: +(256) 41-258 722/232 874

5. State Minister of Ethics and Integrity: Simon Lokodo

Hon. Simon Lokodo
Office of The President Parliament
Tel: +(256) 414 301 600
Fax: +(256) 414 343 177
E-mail: info@dei.go.ug

6. Minister of Health: Christine Ondoa

Hon. Dr. Christine Ondoa
Tel: +(256) 414-340 874 /231 563 /9
Email:  info@health.go.ug

7. Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs: Kahinda Otafiire

Hon. Kahinda Otafiire
Tel: +(256) 41 230 538
Fax: +(256) 41- 254 829
E-mail: mojca@africaonline.co.ug, info@justice.go.ug

8. Minister of Gender, Labour & Social Affairs: Kabwegyere Tarsis

Hon. Kabwegyere Tarsis
Tel: +(256) 775 785 282, +(256) 782 808 191
Email:  support@whatcouldbe.info

9. Director General Uganda AIDS Commission

Dr. Kihumuro Apuuli
Office of The President
Parliament Avenue
P.O. BOX 7168,
Kampala, Uganda
Tel: 071 2 968 028
Tel: +(256) 414 288 065, +(256) 414 258 173
Email: uac@uac.go.ug

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 25th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill had been the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which on November 23 announced that they were prepare to send the bill to the full House for debate and a final vote, possibly as early as Tuesday (Nov 27).

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

In Clauses 16 and 17, we’ve seen how eager those behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill are to extend the bill’s reach far beyond Uganda’s borders, not just through its extradition clause, but also to criminalize acts committed by Ugandan citizens and legal residents while they are abroad. Which means that if you advocate for LGBT citizens while in the U.S., where the First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to freedom of speech, and you will be slapped with a five to seven year prison sentence upon returning to Uganda for violating Clause 13 even those the “offense” didn’t take place on Ugandan soil. The next section, Clause 18, will only further solidify Uganda’s contempt not just for the laws of other nations, but also for International Law itself:

18. Nullification of inconsistent international treaties, protocols, declarations and conventions.
(1) Any International legal instrument whose provisions are contradictory to the spirit and provisions enshrined in this Act, are null and void to the extent of their inconsistency.

(2) Definitions of “sexual orientation”. “sexual rights”, “sexual minorities”, “gender identity” shall not be used in anyway to legitimize homosexuality, gender identity disorders and related practices in Uganda.

This clause would have the effect of pulling Uganda out of all treaties which it has already become a signatory if it decides that those treaties would infringe, in any way, on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But Uganda’s constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages) already spells out Uganda’s obligation to observer all treaties that it entered into before it went into effect in 1995 (see Article 287 on page 171):

287. International agreements, treaties and conventions.

Where—

(a) Any treaty, agreement or convention with any country or international organization was made or affirmed by Uganda or the Government on or after the 9th day of October,1962, and was still in force immediately before the coming into force of this constitution; or

(b) Uganda or the government was otherwise a party immediately before the coming into force of this constitution to any such treaty, agreement or convention,

The treaty, agreement or convention shall not be affected by the coming into force of this constitution: and Uganda or the Government, as the case may be, shall continue to be a party to it.

Furthermore, the constitution already spells out the manner in which Uganda enters into a treaty (see Article 123, pages 89-90).

123. Execution of treaties, conventions and agreements.

(1) The President or a person authorised by the President may make treaties, conventions, agreements or other arrangements between Uganda and any other country or between Uganda and any international organisation or body, in respect of any matter.

(2) Parliament shall make laws to govern ratification of treaties, conventions, agreements or other arrangements made under clause (1) of this article.

The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a Ugandan human rights group, explained the constitutional problem posed by Clause 18 (PDF: 344KB/17 pages, see page 10):

Parliament cannot legislate or simply wish away these (treaty) obligations just because they are inconsistent with a domestic legislation. Indeed, international law prohibits such a thing. … Parliament has only a procedural role to incorporate treaties into Ugandan law – and that is the full extent of its powers. It cannot purport to proscribe the limit of the President‟s treaty making powers. Nor indeed, can Parliament bind its own future action by purporting to exercise in advance its power to scrutinize treaties signed by the President and determine which of them to ratify.

All that Parliament can do is to either ratify or refuse to ratify a treaty after it is signed, and in the latter case such treaty does not become part of Ugandan law. This is the balance of executive power and democratic input achieved by Article 123, and one that clause 18 of the Bill is incompetent to amend.

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it saw the wisdom of the Civil Society Coalition’s argument, but only partly. It struck out the words “nullification of inconsistent” from Clause 18′s title, and recommended changing subclause 1 to read:

“(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, any international legal instrument subsequent to the coming into force of this Act whose provisions contradict the spirit and provisions enshrined in this Act may be ratified by Parliament”.

Justification

To enable Parliament have a final say on such instruments before they can bind the country.

The committee’s recommendation would have had the effect of retaining the legal effects of treaties to which Uganda was already a signatory, but it would nevertheless seek to place an extra-constitutional restriction on future Parliaments’ ability to comply with future treaties. It would also still violate the constitution by interfering with the President’s constitutional powers to sign future treaties. Why the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee believed that their proposed modification was any more in compliance with the constitution than the bill’s original text is mystifying. Regardless, the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 18, which is still officially part of the bill.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Don’t Believe It Until You See It: News Reports Claim Uganda Drops Death Penalty From Anti-Gay Bill

Jim Burroway

November 23rd, 2012

We’ve seen this before. News reports are emerging that the Ugandan Parliament’s Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee has “dropped” the death penalty from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, exchanging it for life imprisonment for those charged with “aggravated homosexuality” — which could be just about anyone, given the overly-broad wording of the bill’s clauses. What’s distressing is that mainstream and LGBT journalists are picking it up despite Ugandan politicians stressing that they can’t release the committee’s draft recommendations to the public, so all we have are Ugandan politicians’ word for it. The BBC has bungled the story several times before; you’d think they’d be more cautious. I can’t tell you how many times there have been pronouncements that the death penalty was dropped only to find out that it was still in the bill. But I’ll try:

• December 9, 2009, Bloomberg reported that the death penalty would be dropped in exchange for forcing people into ex-gay conversion therapy. That quickly proved to be false.
• The next day, M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, told the BBC, “There has been a distortion in the media that we are providing death for gays. That is not true.” Of course, Bahati’s words themsevlves were not true, but the BBC refused to challenge him.
• On January 7, 2010, President Yoweri Museveni told Parliament to drop the death penalty. When Museveni spoke, we thought it was as good as a done deal. A Cabinet member also came forward to say that the bill would be withdrawn. It wasn’t. That same day, the Associated Press misquoted Ugandan LGBT-advocate Frank Mugisha as saying that if the death penalty were dropped, everything would be honkey-dorey. Of course, he said no such thing.
• On January 10, 2010, Scott Lively, one of three anti-gay Americans who put on a horrific conference in Kampala in March 2009 which set the stage for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, joined his voice to the propaganda machinery by announcing his endorsement of the “revised” bill dropping the death penalty, even though the bill was never revised.
• On January 22, 2010, A special Cabinet committee reached a non-compromise “compromise” which reportedly removed the death penalty from the bill. The recommendation was never acted upon.
• On February 5, 2010, the BBC reported that the death penalty would be dropped. By then we were urging everyone to view such reports with skepticism.
• On April 26, 2011, after the bill laid dormant for nearly a year, Bahati began urging that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill be passed before the Eighth Parliament came to an end in May. He re-issued his “concession” that he would consider dropping the death penalty from the bill if it would help to move the bill forward. If nothing else, that “concession” is at least tacit confirmation that all of the prior statements about the death penalty being dropped were false. Nevertheless, the Associated Press quickly announced that the death penalty had been dropped. Again.
• On May 11, 2011. The Los Angeles Times jumped onto the bandwagon and announced that the death penalty had been dropped. Again, it hadn’t. The very next day, Human Rights Watch learned that the death penalty had, in fact, not been dropped. It had been merely substituted with wording which referred to a separate part of the Ugandan Penal Code, to a section which provided the death penalty. Only those who knew what Section 129 was would understand that the death penalty was still in the bill.
• On May 22, 2011, after the Eight Parliament ended without voting on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Bahati vowed to reintroduce the bill into the Ninth Parliament. He also repeated the false claim that the death penalty had been removed.
• On February 7, 2012, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was reintroduced in Parliament, with the same wording as the original 2009 bill with the death penalty.
• On February 8, 2012, the BBC false reported, again, that the death penalty had been dropped from the bill.
• On February 9, 2012, the Associated Press, The Advocate, and The Washington Post all reported that the death penalty had been dropped. It hadn’t.
• On February 24, 2012, PBS reported, wrongly, that the death penalty had been dropped. (On April 5, they got it right when they reported on the anti0gay bill on Newshour.)
• On June 12, 2012, M.P. David Bahati again falsely claimed that the death penalty had been removed from the re-introduced bill.
• On June 22, 2012, the Associated Press claimed that the entire bill had been “shelved.” Boy were they wrong.

That’s not an exhaustive list. That’s just what I was able to find quickly this morning.

So now we have fresh reports that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee has again “dropped” the death penalty from its recommendations to Parliament, the same announcement that they made before when their tried to pull their death-by-stealth move in May 2011. But this time, they say that they can’t release the draft of their recommendations before Parliament because, you know, it’s a “secret.” Gotta follow the rules, you know. But despite this track record, the BBC and Pink News are confidently reporting that the death penalty has been dropped. Journalists with very short attention spans might believe it, but I don’t. And neither should you until we can all see it in writing — and the recomendation is adopted by the full Parliament. Nothing gets dropped until that vote takes place, and it hasn’t happened yet.

 

When a Ugandan Politician Claims The Death Penalty Was Dropped But He Can’t Show You The Draft Recommendations Because They’re Secret, Then The Death Penalty Has Not Been Dropped

Jim Burroway

November 23rd, 2012

WBS Television in Uganda late yesterday posted another report on YouTube featuring statements by members of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which is charged with marking up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with recommended changes.

There are a few troubling aspects to the report. First, the reporter claims that the death penalty has been removed for “homosexuality acts with minors,” which sounds very suspiciously like several other previous reports, later proven to be false, that the death penalty had been removed. The last time we heard that line, we would quickly learn that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, in fact, had not removed the death penalty from the bill, but instead had simply obfuscated the death penalty’s presence in the bill. A complete explanation can be found here.

The second troubling aspect is that the reporter described the clause containing the death penalty as prohibiting “”homosexuality acts with minors” — which it does, but it also imposes the death penalty for much, much more. This, too, is in line with several prior false statement by the Anti-Homosexuality Bill supporters who had tried to misrepresent the scope of the “aggravated homosexuality” clause. Again, a complete explanation of who can qualify for the death penalty can be found here. The fact that the clause is being misrepresented again suggests to me that those who are speaking about the committee’s draft report are being far from candid about what the draft recommendations contain. A huge, waiving red flag like that casts serous doubt in my mind that the death penalty has been removed.

And in case that red flag isn’t big enough, now we’re being told that the draft report from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee is being held secret, and that we won’t know its contents until debate begins and the bill is voted on — which can take place in just a matter of a few hours.

This is one of the junk emails sent to all members of Parliament on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee warning them to go slow about the Anti-Gay Bill which Speaker Rebecca Kadaga had two weeks back asked them to finalize so that the House begins debating it. The emails, the majority of which indicate New York as the town from where they have been sent, try to explain to the M.P.’s that gays are normal people and thus their rights should not be trampled upon.

Despite this pressure however, the members sat in a crisis meeting for close to two hours going through the bill’s seventeen (sic) clauses and approved it for debate before the House beginning next week.

“We have come to the conclusion of this bill and it is ready to be ushered into Parliament this afternoon. Iedit) If it means stopping me from going to the United States for all my life, going to any country because of this bill, I shall stand by this bill and I’m for (M.P. David) Bahati (the bill’s sponsor) for what he has come up with to protect our minors the other generations all around us.”

“We received the instructions from the House to finalize it and we have finalized it.”

The members however lifted the death penalty sentence to anyone who engages in homosexuality acts with minors, putting the punishment at life imprisonment and those who carry out the act above the age of consent will have the lowest penalty as seven years imprisonment.

The draft report made by the committee however was confiscated from all members sitting on the committee so as it is not distributed before its debate.

“The rules do not allow me to divulge the contents of the committee meetings before the final report is submitted to Parliament. But we are looking at the bill. … (Edit)…

There are some, there is still some work. In some respects we needed more information. We needed some technical information in terms of the sentences that we’re proposing in the bill.”

Meanwhile, Parliament has refuted reports that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has been issued with a travel ban to the U.S.A. due to her tough stand against homosexuals. The validity of these reports however are being questioned as some M.P.’s confirmed off-record having seen the travel ban itself.

“I’d like to clarify that there is no formal communication that has come to Parliament about this issue as yet, and therefore we are dismissing that information in the context of this House because as far as we are concerned it isn’t official.

Parliament next week will begin discussing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a private member’s bill presented by Honorable David Bahati. If passed, homosexuality and same-sex marriages will be criminal in Uganda, a matter which however has raised controversy on the world scene with countries like the U.S.A. pledging to cut aid to Uganda.

Conflicting Reports Emerge About U.S. Sanctions Against Uganda

Jim Burroway

November 23rd, 2012

WBS Television in Uganda posted this YouTube report titled, “USA slaps travel ban on Speaker Kadaga over Anti-Gay Bill.” The report itself doesn’t address the travel ban, but a statement posted on the Parliament’s web site denies receiving any communication from the U.S. Mission in Kampala about any travel bans. Instead of describing specific sanctions, the WBS report merely speaks of unspecified sanctions “threatening the country and individuals.” M.P. Stephen Tashobya, who chairs the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee charged with holding hearings on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, says that some members of Parliament have received letters threatening sanctions.

As the demand for the anti-gay bill gains pace in the country, it appears the Western world is putting a fierce energy in ensuring that the anti-gay bill does not find its way into the law books of the country. U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly expressed his discomfort with the proposal to criminalize homosexuality and lesbianism, threatening the country and individuals behind the move with grave sanctions.

“…To have had, I think, from two members of Parliament that they have received a letter from an assistant from the President of the U.S. expressing concern about the passing of the bill.”

(Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Chairman Stephen) Tashobya however says that as the committee starts to scrutinize the proposals, it will collect views of both local and international stakeholders.

“First of all, any person anywhere in the world has the right to come in to give his views about this bill which is before Parliament.”

Same-sex practices are unpopular in the African context, but are considered a human right by activists in the West. The letter comes a few weeks after Speaker Rebecca Kadaga pledged to deliver the bill as a Christmas package to Ugandans.

Warren Throckmorton says that the State Department has denied that Obama has threatened sanctions.

US Ambassador to Uganda: No Aid Will Be Cut

Jim Burroway

November 22nd, 2012

The Uganda Parliament is poised to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill sometime between now and Christmas. Meanwhile, five European countries — Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden –  have already announced they were freezing aid payments to Uganda due to massive corruption when it was discovered that millions of Euros in foreign aid has ended up in the personal bank accounts of several Ugandan top leaders including Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Their announcements came before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill went onto Parliament’s agenda, although Sweden and Britain have previously stated that they would either cut foreign aid if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law. The US last year issued a directive stating, “Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development shall enhance their ongoing efforts to ensure regular Federal Government engagement with governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector in order to build respect for the human rights of LGBT persons.”

But with so many reasons for the U.S. to cut aid to Uganda — or at least to have a serous sit-down with Ugandan authorities, US Ambassador to Uganda Scott H. DeLisi has made the rounds in Kampala to say that there are no plans to spend your tax dollars more effectively elsewhere:

Ambassador Scott H. DeLisi

“The U.S has decided to continue giving aid to Uganda despite the ongoing numerous investigations into the misuse of foreign aid.” Ambassador Scott H. DeLisi said

Scott H DeLisi, the Ambassador of US to Uganda said they will work with several organisations that receive funds to ensure proper use and allocation of the funds.

He said that in a meeting with Uganda’s minister of internal affairs Hilary Onek on Nov 20, the ambassador said they agreed to work together with the ministry to monitor and fulfill the intended purposes of their funds.

Onek thanked the U.S government for its commitment to send funds to Uganda and equated the current state of corruption to measles which has produced a rush on the skin as a sign of healing.

To be clear: the five European countries took action before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill returned to the headlines, and we have no evidence that their actions are related to the renewed push to pass the bill into law. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill appeared on Parliament’s agenda only yesterday, the day after DeLisi made his statement. But now that the bill is on the table, it’s time for the U.S. to step up and insist that my tax dollars and yours — a half a billion dollars’ worth — will not be shipped to a country that is bound and determined to kill its LGBT people. I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of going over the fiscal cliff while Uganda embarks on another anti-gay with hunt with my money.

This is a human rights crisis of epic proportions that is unfolding before our eyes. It is our Nuremberg. And it’s time our State Department stepped up and sent the only message that matters to Uganda’s leaders: pass this bill and the flow of dollars ends.

You can find contact information for the U.S. Mission in Uganda here. They even have a Twitter feed here, although it doesn’t appear to respond to tweets.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Why Now?

Jim Burroway

November 21st, 2012

Since the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill was first introduced in Uganda’s Parliament in October 2009, it has been like a recurring bad dream. Like most recurring dreams, you don’t have this one every night; you only experience it when stressful events trigger its return. Over the past three years, we’ve seen the AHB dominate the headlines, then go dormant, and then come back whenever there are external or internal events which call for either a diversion or a handy weapon.

Did Britain threaten to cut off aid?  Let’s revive the bill. Did a  feisty opposition leader provoke a violent crackdown? Let’s bring back the bill. Did the American Secretary of State just declare that “gay rights are human rights“? Time to bring it back. Clinton’s speech before the United Nations in Geneva proved a handy pretext to re-introduce the bill into Parliament last February, but it has been languishing in committee since then.

So why the sudden impetus now? One Ugandan human rights leader sees one possibility:

But Kikonyogo Kivumbi, executive director of civil rights organisation Uhspa-Uganda, painted a different picture by describing the anti-gay legislation as a “political weapon” for the Ugandan dictatorship in its attempts to influence the UN.

“Uganda is using the bill to threaten and blackmail the West,” he told IBTimes UK. “They know that respect of human rights is a sensible subject in the West and they are using it to blackmail the international community.”

The activist added that the Ugandan government is furious at a UN report which claimed it was abetting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report found that ministers in Kampala are supporting the M23 rebels “in the form of direct troop reinforcements in DRC territory, weapons deliveries, technical assistance, joint planning, political advice and facilitation of external relations”.

Kivumbi said. “When the report came out, the regime was furious and threatened to pull out of Somalia [where around 5,000 Ugandan troops are currently supporting the African Union's peace-keeping mission and curbing the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab].

“They are threatening the sovereignty of a state, Congo, using the Somalia deal which they consider a soft spot for the West.”

This news mostly escaped western notice, but the UN report was a huge deal in Uganda when it came out. President Yoweri Museveni was clearly stung by the report, and he has threatened to pull Ugandan troops out of its peacekeeping mission in Somalia, where they have played a central role in pushing armed clans out of Mogadishu. Ugandan authorities are also making a show of closing its border with Congo even as Congolese rebels have captured the strategic Eastern city of Goma.

That row over the Congo is only one of a long list of conflicts confronting the Ugandan government. Over the past few months, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden announced that they were cutting direct aid to the Ugandan government after learning that much of it went into the personal bank account of Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Well gee, how did it get there?, he asked with feigned ignorance as he promptly found seventeen scapegoats to fire. Those scapegoats are now firing back. A similar scandal is reaching First Lady and Parliament Member Janet Museveni. And in yet another scandal, dozens of leaders have been caught in a US$650 million pension scam in which they registered thousands of so-called ”ghost pensioners” to skim payments off of the nation pension plan’s meager resources. In reaction to all that, the World Bank has now warned that it would review its aid to Uganda, and last weekend, Britain announced that it not just halted its direct aid, but had frozen all bilateral aid, including aid to NGO’s and Ugandan financial institutions as well. That’s a huge hit. Total bilateral aid for the year was set for £98.9 million (US$157 million).

(By the way, the nation’s clerics, sensing an opportunity, have called on foreign governments to bypass the kleptocracy and give the foreign aid directly to them. But obviously, Britain isn’t buying.)

Meanwhile, Uganda’s primary referral hospital, Mulago Hospital, was forced to close its intensive care unit due to lack of funds while the country continues to struggle with nodding disease (the government’s response included feeding its victims rotten food) and a fresh Ebola outbreak. But when anti-corruption activists tried to hold a meeting to demand accountability in government, police intervened and put a stop to it. And, by the way, foreigners are getting brand new identity cards soon. The only reason Ugandans aren’t getting new national identity cards is because that project, too, has been botched by corruption.

So with all that going on, why not throw the masses some tripe and bring up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill? The timing is obviously ripe for it. All that was needed was a pretext. And that came earlier this month when Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga went to Canada for an Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and was present when Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird blasted Uganda’s human rights record. Baird particularly singled out the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the murder of Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato in January, 2011. Kadaga replied with an angry retort, complete with the usual appeals to Uganda’s sovereignty and denunciations of Western colonialism. When she returned home to Entebbe, she was greeted with a hero’s welcome. She then announced to the cheering crowds that Uganda, by God, would show the world it can’t be pushed around anymore.

Speaker Kadaga has emerged as a pivotal figure lately in Ugandan politics. Amid widespread discontent over Museveni’s determination to remain in office through media manipulation and constant crackdowns on the opposition, Kadaga’s fearless brashness plays like a breath of fresh air. Her longstanding position in the ruling National Resistance Movement doesn’t appear to hurt either, as that makes her both a practical and a plausable successor to Museveni should he accept calls to restore term limits when his current term ends in 2016, after which he will have been in power for more than thirty years.

Kadaga’s political instincts are sharp, and she knows a popular, career-enhancing platform when she sees one. She has been a supporter of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill from the very beginning, and before that, for increased penalties for homosexuality.  In April 2009, while Deputy Speaker, she presided over Parliament as M.P. David Bahati sought approval to submit an Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a private member’s bill. The bill failed to come to a vote before the Eight Parliament expired in May 2011.But after the Ninth Parliament elected her as Speaker, Kadaga promptly to engineered the bill’s reintroduction in February 2012. She is now pushing for its passage before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. She says it will be a “Christmas gift” to the Ugandan people, and given the widespread homophobia in Ugandan society, the bill’s passage would only enhance Kadaga’s reputation further. And by the way, the bill’s passage under her leadership might, conveniently, help to quash rumors which surround the fact that, at age 56, Kadaga remains unmarried and without children in a country that takes these things very seriously.

So where is Museveni in all this? It’s usually right about now when a government spokesperson comes forward to tell us that the President or his cabinet has “rejected” the bill. But nobody from Museveni’s cabinet is throwing cold water on it this time. And it may well be that with all of the challenges that Museveni is facing, the bill’s passage, or even its mere threat, may serve Museveni’s interests as much as they serves Kadaga’s. If this bill is passed, she will get the credit — a good thing in domestic politics in the short term — because it will have her fingerprints all over it. But those fingerprints won’t dust off so easily in the long term when the country deals with the fallout with further reductions of foreign aid. That could be particularly damaging in the eyes of those who had supported her as a potential successor to Museveni, and that could play to Museveni’s long-term benefit.

None of this says that the bill’s passage is imminent, and none of its says that it’s not. That’s the tricky thing about trying to read the tea leaves in Uganda. The only thing that is certain is that it all comes down to whose interests are served best and how they are best served. If Kadaga passes the bill now, she will be a hero, for at least few months anyway. If its delayed again, then it’s still out there, ready to be acted on, until the Ninth Parliament expires in 2016. Either way, the larger message has gone out: leave us alone or the gays gets it.

Anti-Homosexuality Bill Appears On Uganda Parliament’s Agenda

Jim Burroway

November 21st, 2012

The Anti-Homosexuailty Bill has appeared on the Orders Paper for the Ugandan Parliament. Today’s Orders Paper (DOC: 39KB/4 pages) shows a rather full agenda, with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill appearing under “Notice of Business to Follow”:

NOTICE OF BUSINESS TO FOLLOW

1. MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT TO URGE GOVERNMENT TO BAIL OUT SEMBULE STEEL MILLS LTD FROM THE INTENDED SALE OF ITS PROPERTIES
2. PRESENTATION, CONSIDERATION AND ADOPTION OF THE REPORT ON THE ADHOC COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE ENERGY SECTOR
3. THE ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY BILL, 2012
4. THE PUBLIC ORDER MANAGEMENT BILL, 2012
5. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE STATUS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES
6. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE AFRICAN SPACE RESEARCH PROGRAM (ASRP)
7. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE REQUEST BY GOVERNMENT TO BORROW SDR 87.1 MILLION (USD 135.0M) FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (IDA) OF THE WORLD BANK GROUP FOR FINANCING OF THE WATER MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (WMDP)
8. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY
9. PETITION AGAINST THE OFFICIAL RECEIVER OF UGANDA ELECTRICITY BOARD (UEB) AND UEB (IN LIQUIDATION) FOR NON-PAYMENT OF GRATUITY

[Emphasis added]

This Order Paper doesn’t indicate when Parliament might take up the bill. It could linger for several weeks as “business to follow,” or it could be pulled forward for immediate action at any time. The current session runs until December 15th before breaking for Christmas. Unlike last May when Parliament was racing against the clock to beat its expiration, the Ninth Parliament remains seated until 2016.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 21st, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

As we’ve been demonstrating throughout this series, the scope of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill is mind-boggling. Only a couple of clauses ostensibly target gay people — although those clauses’ overly-broad wording endangers virtually everyone because the ease with which someone could be convicted over an accusation of ”touching” someone on “any part of the body” “with anything else” (a finger? a foot? a ten foot pole?) “through anything” with the imagined intent of “committing homosexuality.” That loose definition can land someone in prison for the rest of their life or, depending on the whims of the prosecutor, to the gallows. And we’ve also demonstrated a host of clauses which explicitly target straight people for a whole host of offenses they can commit (or be accused of committing) when they come in contact with gay people.

For those of us living outside of Uganda, it might be tempting to count our lucky stars that we don’t live there if the bill passes. That temptation may be stronger for Ugandan expatriates living abroad or Ugandan residents who are out of country. Surely they will be safe, won’t they?

16. Extra- Territorial Jurisdiction.
This Act shall apply to offenses committed outside Uganda where –

(a) a person who, while being a citizen of or permanently residing in Uganda, commits an act outside Uganda, which act would constitute an offence under this Act had it been committed in Uganda; or

(b) the offence was committed partly outside and or partly in Uganda.

17. Extradition.
A person charged with an offence under this Act shall be liable to extradition under the existing extradition laws.

Incredible, isn’t it? And notice how these two clauses apply to “offence(s) under this Act.” This bill seeks to impose penalties for any Ugandan citizen or resident who has a fling abroad (or, who merely touches” someone on “any part of the body” “with anything else” “through anything”) — a lifetime in prison, namely, or a death sentence if they really want to get serious about it.

But not just that. The long arm of Ugandan law seeks to go after any health care workers who are also Ugandan citizens or legal residents — and remember, legal residents would include missionaries and NGO employees from other countries — who happen to “aid and abet” homosexuality by helping out gay people while abroad. Or who decide to advocate on behalf of gay people while abroad. Or attend a same-sex wedding abroad. Or who rents out their home abroad to a gay couple while they are working in Uganda.

It might be a fun drinking game to come up with the craziest way someone abroad could run afoul of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Well, I guess it might be fun if the bill’s supporters weren’t so deadly serious. These two clauses, instead, show us that they aren’t content to keep their anti-gay witch hunts confined to Uganda’s boarders in a way that targets gay and straight people alike. They also want to spread it to the four corners of the world to wherever Ugandans can be found, and to every nation that sends workers to Uganda to help its people deal with the government’s massive failures in providing food, health care, clean drinking water, and simple sanitation.

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported the bill back to Parliamentin May 2011, it recommended that these two clauses be deleted, saying “The practical enforcement and implementation of the provision will be difficult.” But the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including these two clauses which remain in the bill today.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 20th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

We’ve already talked about Clause 14 before in this series. We described how the mandatory reporting clause is a threat to doctors, lawyers, social workers, pastors, and anyone else who “aids and abets” gay people (in conjunction with Clause 7) and how the law is a particular danger to landlords, friends and family members of gay people (in conjunction with Clause 11). But after having looked at the previous thirteen clauses in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, with all of the crimes and all of the penalties that those clauses provide, let’s look at Clause 14 again, except this time I want to highlight something which hasn’t garnered that much attention:

14. Failure to disclose the offence.
A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act, omits to report the offence to the relevant authorities within twenty-four hours of having first had that knowledge, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points or imprisonment not exceeding three years.

(A currency point is is defined in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$7.65, making the maximum fine about US$1,900. Uganda’s per capita income is only about $450.)

Did you catch it? Look again: “A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act…”

Discussions about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill often talk about this clause as requiring anyone who knows someone who is gay being required to report that person to the police. But that’s not what this clause says. Well, it does say that, but it also says so much more.

What it says is that if anyone learns that a doctor is treating gay people, they are required to report that doctor to police within twenty-four hours for “aiding and abetting” homosexuality in violation of Clause 7, because that is an “offence under this Act.”

If someone learns of a landlord or a hotel owner renting to gay people, then that person is required to report the landlord or hotel owner to police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 11, another “offence under this Act.” If someone learns of someone providing a safe house to gay people on the run, then that person is required to report the sanctuary-provider to police within twenty-four hours for also violating Clause 11.

If someone discovers that someone else witnessed a same-sex wedding taking place, then that person is required to report the witness to the police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 12. If someone learns of a person making donation to a gay-rights group, then that person is required to report the donor to police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 13. If someone learns of anyone who says that gay rights should be respected, then that person is required to report the rights advocate to police within twenty-four hours, also for violating Clause 13.

And that’s in addition to the case where someone learns that somebody else touched someone else’s “any part of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act which “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse,” that that person is required to report that “toucher” to police for violating Clauses 1 and 2. The extend of this reporting requirement is nearly endless.

And if anyone should fail to report any of these things — and much more — within twenty-four hours of learning about it, that person could be thrown in prison for three years.

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it recommended that Clause 14 be deleted, saying “The offence will create absurdities and the provision will be too hard to implement.” But the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 14 with all its absurdities. As of today, Clause 14 is still officially part of the bill.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 18th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

The bill’s memorandum, which serves as a prologue, gives its first objective as “provid(ing) for marriage in Uganda as that contracted only between a man and a woman.” It’s odd, then, that it waits until Clause 12 before it finally gets around to making it a criminal offense:

12. Same sex marriage.
A person who purports to contract a marriage with another person of the same sex commits the offence of homosexuality and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

In more than half of the states of the U.S., same-sex marriage is banned, as it is in most other parts of the world. Where it is banned, nearly every other jurisdiction is satisfied to simply make such an arrangement a legal impossibility. But it is an exceptionally rare country (is there another one?) that goes so far as turning marriage into a criminal offense, let alone one such as Uganda that carries a penalty of a lifetime in prison. And yet, that is exactly what this bill would do. Any Ugandan who presents another person of the same sex as a spouse has broken a law so severe that the individual would be cast for the rest of his or her life into a Ugandan prison.

But not only that, it would appear possible that with the clause beginning with “a person who purports to contract a marriage…” might endanger any foreign married visitor who enters Uganda, either as a business person or a tourist, who mentions his or her same-sex spouse to anyone in Uganda.

Incredibly, when the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it decided that Clause 12 didn’t go far enough. They recommended the following:

Clause 12 is amended by inserting a new sub-clause (2) as follows-

“(2) A person or institution commits an offence if that person or institution conducts a marriage ceremony between persons of the same sex and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment to a maximum of three years for individuals or cancellation of licence for an institution”.

Justification

To prohibit celebration of same sex marriages

The justification is telling: anyone who wants to celebrate with the happy couple is also breaking the law. Celebrations will not be permitted in Uganda. And neither is religious freedom, at least not for those religions which affirm the equality of LGBT people in marriage. The committee however failed to notice that the prohibition runs counter to Uganda’s constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages), which under Chapter 4, Article 29, (Page 42) includes the following:

(1) Every person shall have the right to—

…(c) freedom to practise any religion and manifest such practice which shall include the right to belong to and participate in the practices of any religious body or organisation in a manner consistent with this Constitution;

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Straight People In The Crosshairs

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 18th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

The clauses that we’ve examined so far in this series ostensibly target gay people, but already it is clear that the (possibly) unintended consequences of the bill’s breathtaking scope would also make heterosexuals vulnerable through false accusations of homosexual behavior, particularly in a country where corruption is endemic and there are scores to settle. Now we turn our attention to the clauses which target heterosexuals directly. Take Clause 11, for instance:

11. Brothels.
(1) A person who keeps a house, room, set of rooms or place of any kind for the purposes of homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

2) A person being the owner or occupier of premises or having or acting or assisting in the management or control of the premises, induces or knowingly suffers any man or woman to resort to or be upon such premises for the purpose of being unlawfully and carnally known by any man or woman of the same sex whether such carnal knowledge is intended to be with any particular man or woman generally, commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for five years.

This clause’s title claims to target brothels, ordinarily understood as houses of ill-repute, places of prostitution. But look more closely at the subclauses: they suggest nothing of the kind. If the clause was intended to target prostitution, you’d think it would actually mention at least a few of the key characteristics of the profession: making money from sex, charging money for sex, arranging or accommodating for sex-for-pay, or anything else that one might associate with running a brothel.

Look at the subclauses again: anyone who allows anyone to conduct an act of “carnal knowledge” on their premises is in danger of being imprisoned for ether five or seven years, depending on how the police and prosecution decide to press charges. That’s it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running a sexually-oriented business or not. Homeowners, landlords, hotel owners, hostel operators, or just someone offering guest accommodations to gay visitors can find themselves in trouble with the law. In the worst possible scenario, this clause could also be used to prosecute those who provide safe houses for gay Ugandans who are in hiding for their own safety.

If the goal of this bill is to drive all LGBT Ugandans out of the country, this clause alone would be one way to do it. After all, if it becomes impossible to find a place to live because the property owner could be jailed if authorities found out you were gay, where could you go? Back home to your family? Think again:

7. Aiding and abating (sic) homosexuality
A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

14. Failure to disclose the offence.
A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act, omits to report the offence to the relevant authorities within twenty-four hours of having first had that knowledge, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points or imprisonment not exceeding three years.

(A currency point is is defined in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$7.65, making the maximum fine about US$1,900. Uganda’s per capita income is only about $450.)

The key to understanding Clause 14 is to notice that it invokes the phrase “a person of authority” in describing who has the legal requirement to report gay people to police. Clause 1 provides the definition of authority to be used in interpreting Clause 14. That definition is:

“authority” means having power and control over other people because of your knowledge and official position; and shall include a person who exercises religious. political, economic or social authority;

Again, it’s the definition’s broadness which invites trouble. Because of the “social authority” invested by Ugandan society in family ties, relatives fall under the requirement to report their loved ones to police within twenty-four hours of discovering they were gay. As Makarere University Law Professor Sylvia Tamale pointed out during a public debate on the bill in 2009:

The bill requires family members to “spy” on one another.  This provision obviously does not strengthen the family unit in the manner that Hon. Bahati claims his bill wants to do, but rather promotes the breaking up of the family.  This provision further threatens relationships beyond family members.  What do I mean?  If a gay person talks to his priest or his doctor in confidence, seeking advice, the bill requires that such person breaches their trust and confidentiality with the gay individual and immediately hands them over to the police within 24 hours.  Failure to do so draws the risk of arrest to themselves.  Or a mother who is trying to come to terms with her child’s sexual orientation may be dragged to police cells for not turning in her child to the authorities.  The same fate would befall teachers, priests, local councilors, counselors, doctors, landlords, elders, employers, MPs, lawyers, etc.

She also points out that this clause opens up all of those groups to potential abuse, blackmail and extortion if they fail to report gay people to police. Logic would have it that if family members could be blackmailed, then landlords and hotel owners could also fall prey. Pay up, or we’ll report you along with the gay people you’re harboring.

The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a Ugandan human rights group, also explained that this clause, in particular, would violate internationally-accepted practices of many professions which operate under the doctrine of Confidentiality (PDF: 344KB/17 pages, see page 8):

Professional practice in all professions is guided by professional ethics and codes of conduct clearly specified and that have gone sway for times immemorial the world over. One of the basic tenets of professional practice is the doctrine of Confidentiality by which a professional is bound not to divulge information acquired from a client by virtue of their professional relationship. Clause 14 of Anti-Homosexuality Bill roundly enjoins all professionals to report to police information on commission of homosexuality, acquired in the course of their professional dealings and relationships with their clients, in breach of their professional duty of confidentiality to their clients. This removes the basis of trust, which is the foundation of the professional – client relationship and thereby violates the right to practice a profession. The provision clearly undermines the right to engage in lawful occupations, trade or business that may directly or indirectly have a link with client‟s sexuality. Medical doctors and personnel, lawyers, Counselors, religious leaders, traders of sex products, social workers, human rights activists and many other professional are affected by Clause 14 of the Bill. This is unfortunate in a liberalized market economy, supported very much by the private sector that is grounded on the right to practice one’s profession and carry on any lawful occupation, trade or business.

The British medical journal The Lancet reported that the bill’s targeting of professionals may be intentional. In a December 2009 talk that M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, delivered to a cheering audience at Makerere University in Kampala (subscription required):

Before ceding the podium, Bahati had one last point to make. “This is not a Ugandan thing”, he said, his chest swelling with indignation. “Homosexuals are using foreign aid organisations to promote this. If an organisation is found to be promoting homosexuality, then their licence should be revoked.”

Shoulder to shoulder with Bahati’s supporters a half dozen or so Ugandans listened quietly. Several were doctors who had spent much of their careers toiling against a disease that has taken the lives of more than a million Ugandans. Their faces were stoic as they contemplated the implications of Bahati’s bill for the fight against HIV/AIDS not just among gay men but also among the wives and children of men who also have sex with men. They considered the long, lean years that had been spent quietly setting up networks to disburse information on HIV/AIDS to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Ugandans.

“As a doctor, the law infuriates me”, said one general practitioner, who is much sought after by sexual minorities for his willingness to treat them, and who asked that his name not be used for fear that he would be arrested for working with sexual minorities. “We are only now getting to a point where people understand there is a problem. This law is going to erase all of that.”

It will erase all that for two reasons. Doctors who are found providing accurate safe-sex information to people who they know are gay can be held liable for “aiding and abetting” homosexuality. And gay people, understanding that Clause 14 would require doctors to report known gay people to police, would be driven underground. This is critical in the fight against AIDS. As The Lancet’s Zoe Alsop reported, in much of Africa, where AIDS is predominantly a heterosexual disease, many people, including doctors, believe that it’s impossible for gay people to become infected with HIV. This is a very different understanding than in the west.

While Clause 14 has gotten a lot of attention, we must not loose sight of what Clause 7 might do. Ordinary people who come in contact with LGBT people — whether they be friends, parents, siblings, co-workers, employers or neighbors — through ordinary kindnesses, accommodations, mutual aid and support, can be seen as “aiding and abetting” homosexuality. And they, too, could face imprisonment if they fail to report their gay friends, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, co-workers, employees, or neighbors to police within twenty-four hours of finding out about that person’s sexuality.

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it recommended that Clause 7 against “aiding and abetting homosexuality” be deleted because, the committee said, it was covered by Clause 13 prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality.” (We will examine that clause later.) It made no recommendation for Clause 11 against “brothels,” leaving it intact as written. As for Clause 14 requiring everyone to report gay people to police within twenty-four hours, the committee recommended its deletion, saying “The offence will create absurdities and the provision will be too hard to implement.”

But the Eighth Parliament expired before the legislature could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clauses 7 and 14 with all its absurdities. And that is exactly where things stand today.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: How To Get Out Of Jail Free

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 17th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

If you’ve been paying attention to the clauses we’ve examined so far, you may have noticed a trend. The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill assumes that there always two kinds of gay people in the world: aggressors and victims. The proposed crime of “aggravated homosexuality,” which can bring with it the death penalty (see Clause 3), identifies “offenders” and “victims,” even though some of those so-called victims — people with disabilities, an HIV-negative partner of an HIV-positive person, a person who “serially” loved another person — would very likely have been consensual partners. The following three clauses further delineate the many ways in which someone can become a “victim” of homosexuality:

8. Conspiracy to engage in homosexuality.
A person who conspires with another to induce another person of the same sex by any means of false pretence or other fraudulent means to permit any person of the same sex to have unlawful carnal knowledge of him or her commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

9. Procuring homosexuality by threats, etc.
(1) A person who–

(a) by threats or intimidation procures or attempts to procure any woman or man to have any unlawful carnal knowledge with any person of the same sex, either in Uganda or elsewhere;

(b) by false pretences or false representations procures any woman or man to have any unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex, either in Uganda or elsewhere; or

(2) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under this section upon the evidence of one witness only, unless that witness is corroborated in some material particular by evidence implicating the accused.

10. Detention with intent to commit homosexuality.
A person who detains another person with the intention to commit acts of homosexuality with him or herself or with any other person commits an offence and is liable on conviction for seven years.

You will notice that Clause 9 is incomplete. When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee considered the bill in May of 2011, they recognized that Clause 9 could have benefited from some proof-reading. The committee recommended the following (PDF: 57KB/6 pages.):

Clause 9 is amended by

a) Deleting the words “…either in Uganda or elsewhere; or” appearing at the end of the sub-clauses (1) (a) and (b).

b) Adding at the end of the provision the words “…commits an offence and is liable on conviction be liable to imprisonment of seven years.

Justification

To complete the provision by creating an offence and imposing a prohibitive penalty.

Clauses 8 through 10, by themselves, don’t actually serve any legal purposes. It’s already to illegal to threaten someone into having sex — that’s called rape — and it’s illegal to detain another person against their will for any purpose — that’s called kidnapping. These clauses merely make illegal those things which are already illegal. But they do serve a propaganda purpose by reinforcing the idea that gay people are inherently predatory. And they also provide a convenient menu from which quick-thinking “victims of homosexuality” can choose when they notice the benefits of being identified as a “victim.” And why would someone want to do that?

5. Protection, assistance and payment of compensation to victims of homosexuality.
(1 ) A victim of homosexuality shall not be penalized for any crime commuted as a direct result of his or her involvement in homosexuality.

(2) A victim of homosexuality shall be assisted to enable his or her views and concerns to be presented and considered at the appropriate stages of the criminal proceedings.

(3) Where a person is convicted of homosexuality or aggravated homosexuality under sections 2 and 3 of this Act, the court may, in addition to any sentence imposed on the offender, order that the victim of the offence be paid compensation by the offender for any physical, sexual or psychological harm caused to the victim by the offence.

(4) The amount of compensation shall be determined by the court and the court shall take into account the extent of harm suffered by the victim of the offence. the degree of force used by the offender and medical and other expenses incurred by the victim as a result of the offence.

6. Confidentiality.
(1) At any stage of the Investigation or trial of an offence under this Act, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judicial officers and medical practitioners, as well as parties to the case, shall recognize the right to privacy of the victim.

(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), in cases involving children and other cases where the court considers it appropriate. proceedings of the court shall be conducted in camera, outside the presence of the media.

(3) Any editor or publisher, reporter or columnist in case of printed materials. announcer or producer in case of television and radio, producer or director of a film to case of the movie industry, or any person utilizing trimedia facilities or information technology who publishes or causes the publicity of the names and personal circumstances or any other information tending to establish the victim’s identity without authority of court commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points.

A currency point is is defined in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$7.65, making the maximum fine about US$1,900. Uganda’s per capita income is only about $450.

The very first statement of clause 5 represents a huge get-out-of-jail free card for anyone who is caught in a same-sex relationship (or, as we have pointed out before, perhaps simply in the act of “touching” “any part of of the body” “with anything else”  “through anything” in an act that “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse”). Say, for example, if police should burst into your bedroom while you are there with another person of the same sex and you are caught red-handed being handled “through anything” in an act that “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse,” all you have to do tell them that you’re the victim. Tell them your partner made you do it; tell them your partner kept you there against your will; tell them your partner trickedyou into doing it — don’t worry, no one will bother wondering how he might have tricked you into it — and you will be free from prosecution.

But the benefits don’t end there. You won’t just escape a lifetime in prison or the hangman’s noose, you’ll even get paid to tell the judge how terribly you were victimized.

These clauses practically beg you to rat out your partner. And it’s the perfect escape hatch for the quick-witted or the well-connected: no one even needs to know that you were involved because the confidentially clause will ensure that your name stays out of the papers and television.

Based on very recent experience, these clauses are guaranteed to open the floodgates to massive anti-gay witch hunts for anyone with an axe to grind against an enemy. This bill will  become a potent weapon in all sorts of religious,  political, or business rivalries, let alone the day-to-day disputes that arise among family members, co-workers, students, and neighbors. Imagine what would have happened to Pastor Robert Kayanja of the Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral, who was accused of homosexuality by rival anti-gay pastors Martin Ssempa, Michael Kyazze and Solomon Male in 2009. Ssempa, Kyazze and Male were convicted last month after it was demonstrated that their charges against Kayanja were false. But if this law had been in place, the result could have been very different, simply because of the strong incentive it would have provided for someone to come forward to claim to be Kayanja’s “victim.” And instead of Ssempa and others being sentenced to perform community service, it could have been  Kayanja who would be rotting away in a Ugandan prison for seven years, the rest of his life, or worse.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 17th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been re-introduced into Parliament and is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. As the Committee considers what to do with the bill, there has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In this series, we will examine the original text of bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

The next clause in Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is Clause 4:

4. Attempt to commit homosexuality.
(1) A person who attempts to commit the offence of homosexuality commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment seven years.

(2) A person who attempts to commit the offence of aggravated homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

After having dealt with Clauses 1 and 2 (which sets up the “crime” of homosexuality) and Clause 3 (the infamous death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”), I hardly know what do do with this one. Particularly in light of the extraordinarily broad definition of the “crime” of homosexuality in Clauses 1 and 2 — where the crime of “touching” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” (a finger? an elbow? a Ronco Pocket Fisherman?) “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.” I’m having a hard time imagining what it would be like to simply attempt to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else”  “through anything” without “culminat(ing) in intercourse” in a way that lands you seven years in prison. Or for life if you do all of that while HIV-positive. Can you imagine the prosecutor in a case like this?

“Your honor, the defendant did maliciously and willfully attempt to touch another man’s shoulder with his kneecap through his jeans and the victim’s hoodie without culminating in intercourse, but failed to complete the attempt. The State demands seven years!”

“Beg your pardon Your Honor. The man whose shoulder he attempted to touch (but didn’t) with his kneecap through his jeans and the victim’s hoodie without culminating in intercourse, is missing a leg. Because he’s disabled, that’s ‘attempted aggravated homosexuality’! The State demands life!”

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it displayed what is perhaps its only spasm of legislative wisdom by recommending that the clause be deleted (PDF: 57KB/6 pages). The committee observed that  this clause “may become too hard and difficult to prove which may cause absurdities.” Absurdities indeed. But the Eighth Parliament expired before the legislature could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, the bill was re-introduced with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 4 with all its absurdities. And that is exactly where things stand today.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.

Jim Burroway

November 16th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament’s Christmas break on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

Today we examine the most discussed clause of the bill, Clause 3 which would establish the crime of “aggravated homosexuality”:

3. Aggravated homosexuality.
(1) A person commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality where the

(a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years;

(b) offender is a person living with HIV;

(c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed;

(d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed;

(e) victim of the offence is a person with disability;

(f) offender is a serial offender, or

(g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy overpower him or her so as to there by enable any person to have unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex,

(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.

(3) Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.

This is easily the most contentious clause of the bill, and the clause which the bill’s sponsor, M.P. David Bahati, has exploited to maximum effect. Go back and look at most of the definitions for “aggravated homosexuality” and see if you don’t agree with me that many of them represent some very horrendous crimes. Sex with minors? Check. Incest? Check. Slipping a Mickey? Check. Applying the death penalty to those provisions could be very contentious, but who among us haven’t reacted with the wish to “string them up” a few times in our lives?

But mixed in with those crimes are others which, on second look, demonstrate exactly what the bill’s author and supporters think of gay people. Take the provision where the “offender is a person living with HIV,” and notice that it is followed by a requirement that the suspect undergo an HIV test to ascertain his or her eligibility for the death sentence. In other words, whether the person knew he or she was HIV-positive is irrelevant in the bill. The government will find that out and decide whether the suspect qualifies for the death penalty. Additionally, there is nothing in the bill about whether the person tried to hide his or her HIV status. No matter whatever disclosures the individual may have made, no matter whatever precautions may have been taken, no matter whatever consent the suspect’s partner may have given — and no matter whether sex had actually occurred (See clauses 1 and 2) — an individual merits death according to this law simply for being HIV-positive. No matter what.

Not only that, but suspects will be tested to determine their HIV status and, not incidentally, their eligibility for the death penalty. Which means that people who don’t even know they are HIV-positive will fall under this clause.

Another provision, where the “victim of the offence is a person with disability,” plays on the assumption built into the proposed law that the “offender” is predatory, which necessarily involves a “victim.” (We’ll discuss more on that later when we get to Clauses 5 and 6.) It also assumes that the person with the disability is unable to be an equal partner in a relationship. One couple that I know personally consists of a deaf man and a hearing man. They’ve been together for years, but under the terms of this bill, one would die while the other would go to prison for the rest of his life (unless he took advantage of Clauses 5 and 6).

But the worst part of this clause is where it lays the charge of “aggravated homosexuality” for when the “offender is a serial offender.” This clause alone can entangle almost anyone in the hangman’s noose. It all goes back to Clause 1, where you will find this definition:

“serial offender” means a person who has previous convictions of the offence of homosexuality or related offences; [emphasis mine]

There are a ton of “related offenses” in the proposed bill, including renting a room to a gay person, refusing to report a gay person to police, using the internet to advocate for the rights of gay people, donating to a pro-gay cause — and all of these offenses may be committed by straight people. A prior conviction on one of those clauses and then “touching” someone “with a part of a body” and “through anything” without anything even close to sex taking place (again, see clauses 1 and 2), and you’re headed to the gallows under this bill. Rob Tisinai illustrated how this can happen in this video from 2010.

The other provisions under this clause — those parts outlawing incest, child abuse, drugging someone — are already illegal under Ugandan law. This bill provides nothing new for those cases except for the death penalty. But those provisions are included in this bill for a very important reason: they provide a fig-leaf of an excuse for the bill which Bahati and his supporters have exploited to the fullest extent. For example, he told the BBC in December 2009:

There has been a distortion in the media that we are providing death for gays. That is not true,” he said. “When a homosexual defiles a kid of less than 18 years old, we are providing a penalty for this.”

Two days later, he told The Guardian:

The section of the death penalty relates to defilement by an adult who is homosexual and this is consistent with the law on defilement which was passed in 2007. The whole intention is to prevent the recruitment of under-age children, which is going on in single-sex schools. We must stop the recruitment and secure the future of our children.”

On December 27, he went on Ugandan television to say:

The pro-gay community picked on the death, the word death, in the bill, and just turned it around to attract sympathy in their country. We are not providing for death penalty for two adults, we are providing for death penalty to be consistent with the Defilement Act that we passed in 2007, er where an adult, engages, rapes, a minor of 18 years and below… (Ssempa: a girl) and when that adult has HIV/AIDS, or you are a guardian, you are a parent, you want to rape the kid that you are looking after, this is what we are proposing.

Others have picked up Bahati’s line on the bill’s death penalty, including Americans Tony Perkins, Molotov Mitchell, Cliff Kincaid, Andrew Wommack, Las Vegas megachurch pastor Mitch Harrison, and Karen Schuberg, among many others, who claimed that the proposed death penalty is limited to just three things: intentionally spreading HIV, child molestation, and coercion. And they claim this despite the very clear language of the bill. Funny how none of them will actually include the text of the bill itself whenever they make these claims.

Has the Death Penalty Been Dropped?
On a final note, it’s important to address the persistent false reports in the media that the death penalty has been removed from the bill. Those false reports have been reported as though they were fact since December, 2009. Part of the confusion has stemmed from the Ugandan governments’ pronouncements over the years that the bill has been “rejected”. In April 2010, that so-called “rejection” was followed by a government recommendation that the bill’s provisions be passed under the radar in other, less controversial bills.  Additional reports of the government “shelving” the bill emerged in March 2011, only to be followed again a few weeks later with suggestions that the bill be carved up and passed unnoticed in other bills.

Finally in May of 2011, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which had been charged with the task of coming up with recommendations for the bill, issued their final report. They recommended removing some clauses of the bill, while also recommending the addition of a new clause criminalizing the conduct of same-sex marriages. As for the death penalty provision, the committee implied that the death penalty was unsatisfactory because it “does not make the offender feel the punishment for his actions.”

Sounds like they’re ready to get rid of it, right? Well here was their recommendation for Clause 3: (PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)

1. Clause 3 (2) is amended by substituting for the words “…suffer death’’ with words “…the penalty provided for aggravated defilement under Section 129 of the Penal Code Act”.

Justification

To harmonise the provision with the penalty under the Penal Code Act

Well guess what. Section 129 of the Penal Code Act reads that anyone who “commits a felony called aggravated defilement [i.e. child sexual abuse] and is, on conviction by the High Court, liable to suffer death.” Which means that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended that the death penalty be retained through stealth. Bahati then went on to claim that the death penalty was removed even though it was still a part of the bill. The Eighth Parliament ended before it could act on the committee’s recommendation.

On February 7, 2012, the original version of the bill, unchanged from when it was first introduced in 2009, was reintroduced into the Ninth Parliament. The bill was again sent to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. Despite reports to the contrary, the original language specifying the death penalty is still in the bill, and will remain there unless the committee recommends its removal and Parliament adopts that recommendation in a floor vote.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill (Revised):
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Uganda Parliament Speaker Demands Anti-Gay Bill Be Brought to House Floor on Tuesday

Jim Burroway

November 16th, 2012

Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, today reports that Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has demanded that Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee bring Anti-Homosexuality Bill to the House floor for debate and a vote by next Tuesday:

The committee chairperson, Mr Stephen Tashobya, passed on Ms Rebecca Kadaga’s directive to committee members yesterday as he summoned them to attend next week’s session in person “to have the Bill concluded”.<

In her November 13 letter, the Speaker advised Mr Tashobya to be mindful of what she said was the high demand by the public to address homosexuality.
“I write to reiterate my earlier instruction to your committee to expeditiously handle the review of the report on the Bill. As you are aware, there is high demand by the population to address the escalating problem of promoting and recruiting minors into homosexuality,” the letter reads in part.

“This is therefore to inform you that I shall place the Bill on the Order Paper immediately after conclusion of the Oil Bills,” she wrote. Parliament is concluding consideration of the Petroleum (Exploration, Production and Development) Bill as the House breaks off for Christmas recess on December 15, which suggests that after the Bill is hopefully completed by next Tuesday, MPs can expect to debate and probably pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

On Monday, Kadaga called for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which still includes a death penalty for gay people under certain circumstances, to be brought to a vote and passed within two weeks.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Anyone Can Be Gay Under the Law

Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Jim Burroway

November 13th, 2012

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament’s Christmas break. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee.

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

To get an idea of how incredibly expansive the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill is, one need go no further than the definitions provided in Clause 1. Please review them carefully, because elsewhere in this series we will note how these definitions will greatly expand the bill’s scope:

1. Interpretation.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires –

“authority” means having power and control over other people because of your knowledge and official position; and shall include a person who exercises religious. political, economic or social authority;

“bisexual” means a person who is sexually attracted to both males and females;

“child” means a person below the age of 18 years:

“currency point” has the value assigned to it in the Schedule to this Act;

“disability” means a substantial limitation of daily life activities caused by physical. mental or sensory impairment and environment barriers resulting in limited participation;

“felony” means an offence which is declared by law to be a felony or if not declared to be a misdemeanor is punishable without proof of previous conviction, with death or with imprisonment for 3 years or more.;

“gay”” means a male person who engages in sexual intimacy with another person of the same sex;

“‘gender”” means male or female;

“HIV” means the Human Immunodeficiency Virus;

“homosexual”‘ means a person who engages or attempts to engage in same gender sexual activity;

“homosexuality”’ means same gender or same sex sexual acts;

“lesbian” means a female who engages in sexual intimacy with another female;

“Minister’” means the Minister responsible for ethics and integrity;

“misdemeanor” means an offence which is not a felony;

“serial offender” means a person who has previous convictions of the offence of homosexuality or related offences;

“sexual act” includes –

(a) physical sexual activity that does not necessarily culminate in intercourse and may include the touching of another’s breast, vagina, penis or anus:

(b) stimulation or penetration of a vagina or mouth or anus or any part of the body of any person, however slight by a sexual organ;

(c) the unlawful use of any object or organ by a person on another person’s sexual organ or anus or mouth;

“sexual organ” means a vagina, penis or any artificial sexual contraption;

“touching” includes touching—

(a) with any part of the body;

(b) with anything else;

(c) through anything;

and in particular includes touching amounting to penetration of any sexual organ. anus or mouth.

“victim” includes a person who is involved in homosexual activities against his or her will.

These definitions may seem innocuous as they stand alone, but as we go through the bill, I want you to keep them in mind because they have the effect of broadening the bill far beyond the scope that most people would assume. To see how this works, we only have to go into the second clause which specifies “the offence of homosexuality”:

2. The offence of homosexuality.
(1) A person commits the offence of homosexuality if-

(a) he penetrates the anus or mouth of another person of the same sex with his penis or any other sexual contraption;

(b) he or she uses any object or sexual contraption to penetrate or stimulate sexual organ of a person of the same sex;

(c) he or she touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.

(2) A person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

The punishment provided by this clause is the same that is already specified under § 145 of the Uganda’s Penal Code, which reads:

Any person who— (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.

The phrase “against the order of nature” has been interpreted throughout the English-speaking world as including homosexuality. But because the British Colonial-era law which Uganda inherited doesn’t provide precise definitions, it has been common practice to require evidence of penetration (for men) or direct genital contact in order to prove an individual’s guilt under this law.

But the new definitions provided in Clauses 1 and 2 greatly open the possibility for conviction to just about anyone who has simply bumped into or brushed up against an accuser who has an axe to grind. Look again at Clause 2, 1.c.: a person, under this clause, can be sent to a Ugandan prison for life for merely “touching” someone. And Clause 1 defines ”touching” to include “any part of the body” “with anything else” (a finger? a foot? a ten foot pole?) “through anything.” All of which means that someone can “commit homosexuality” even if they are fully clothed and there is no actual skin-to-skin contact. The sole proof required is that the “touching” took place with the perceived “intention” of committing the act of homosexuality. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But just to make sure we’re clear that the bill intends to cast an extraordinarily wider net, go back to the definition of ”sexual act” in Clause 1: an act that “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”

You can see where this is going, can’t you? With the bar for conviction thus lowered, anyone can be falsely accused of being gay — one can easily imagine rival politicians, business owners and pastors falling prey to such accusations – and it will become virtually impossible for them to prove their innocence.

We already know that this will have disastrous real-world consequences. In October, anti-gay pastors Martin Ssempa, Michael Kyazze, Solomon Male and others were convicted of falsely accusing a rival pastor of homosexuality. Their accusations fell apart when they were unable to prove that Pastor Robert Kayanja of the Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral had engaged in a same-sex sexual act. But if this law had been in place, the result could have been very different. Instead of Ssempa and others being sentenced to  perform community service (and milking it for publicity), Kayanja could be rotting in a Ugandan prison for the rest of his life. Or worse.

With these two clauses alone, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill already poses grave dangers for virtually anyone in Uganda who has ever acquired an enemy. Just about anyone can be accused of committing a homosexual act without actually, you know, committing anything close to a homosexual act. And to think we still have sixteen clauses to go.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Major Uganda Broadcaster Turns Cheerleader for Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Jim Burroway

November 12th, 2012

Uganda’s NTV is normally a reasonably reliable source of information, but this report suggests that the influential independent channel may have become yet another cheerleading outlet promoting the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Toward the end of NTV’s coverage of a rally by religious leaders in Uganda’s parliament (featured speakers included former Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo and M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor), the announcer attributes the bill’s failure in the Eighth Parliament to pressure from “western countries and wealthy gay activists.” The announcer also describes the bill this way:

2:10: The bill originally proposed a death sentence for adults found guilty of raping young boys, but has since been revised to life imprisonment.

The entire statement is patently false: the death sentence went far beyond those found guilty of “raping young boys.” In fact, a careful reading of the bill’s language makes clear that just about anyone convicted of homosexuality or related crimes (a frighteningly broad category) stands a good chance of being charged with so-called “aggravated homosexuality.”

The second part of the statement, claiming that the death penalty has been shelved, is also a boldfaced lie. In May of 2011, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee  recommended a sly change to the bill, removing the explicit language of “suffer(ing) death,” and replacing it with a reference to the penalties provided in an unrelated law which already exists. That law specifies the death penalty, which means that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended that the death penalty be retained through stealth. Bahati then went on to claim that the death penalty was removed even though it was still a part of the bill. The Eighth Parliament ended before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. On February 7, 2012, the original version of the bill, unchanged from when it was first introduced in 2009, was reintroduced into the Ninth Parliament. The bill was again sent to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. Despite reports to the contrary, the original language specifying the death penalty is still in the bill, and will remain there unless the committee recommends its removal and Parliament adopts that recommendation in a floor vote. To date, that has not occurred.

NTV, which is owned by the same media outlet which publishes Daily Monitor, has generally been a reputable broadcaster. That it should now misrepresent the bill’s penalty while attributing its earlier failure, without evidence, to “wealthy gay activists,” is a distressing turn of events.

Report: Uganda’s Speaker Promises To Pass Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Two Weeks (UPDATED)

Jim Burroway

November 12th, 2012

Warren Throckmortin found this report, which suggests that Uganda’s Parliament may pass proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill sometime in the next two weeks. According to the report:

Speaker (Rebecca) Kadaga committed herself during a meeting with a coalition of religious, political, cultural leaders held at parliament where she said that Uganda is an independent country which operates under its constitution. We should stop dancing on the tune of western countries. We have the right to reject any things which is against our culture.

“Am going to allow Hon Bahati to proceed with his bill and make sure that it is passed within the period of two weeks. As leaders we should listen to the voice of our people. It is our responsibility to protect our country against homosexuality ,our value, culture and character” Speaker Kadaga noted

Elsewhere religious, cultural and political leader said that all homosexual practitioners in Uganda should be killed because homosexual is not allowed in Uganda.

“It is an abomination in Uganda for a man to marry a fellow man and a woman to get married to her fellow woman. We strongly condemn and oppose the devil called homosexuality on our soil. As religious, cultural leaders we urge the Uganda’s brave (Kadaga) to be strong, farm and courageous while fighting Homosexual in Uganda. The Western world should take their moral behaviors away from Africa Uganda in particular” Religious leaders noted.

I am not familiar with Uganda Picks, so I can’t comment on the report’s veracity. Warren Throckmorton writes, “the basic news that the Parliament is set to act on the bill is consistent with what I am hearing from sources in Uganda.” It also confirms a report made earlier this month by  Daily Monitor, a much more reputable independent newspaper, which quoted the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Chair Steven Tashobya as saying that his committee will be ready to report the bill back to the House floor before Parliament breaks for Christmas.

[Update: The Associated Press is now picking up on the story:

Ugandans "are demanding it," (Kadaga) said, reiterating a promise she made before a meeting on Friday of anti-gay activists who spoke of "the serious threat" posed by homosexuals to Uganda's children. Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as "a Christmas gift."

..."Who are we not to do what they have told us? These people should not be begging us," Kadaga said of activists who want the bill to become law.]

M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, now chairs the ruling party’s caucus in Parliament. But unlike in previous periods of intense discussions about the bill, his present media silence has been conspicuous. Kadaga, a long-time supporter of the bill, appears to have taken the public role of pushing for the bill’s passage.  In early 2009, she advocated for for increased criminal penalties for homosexuality. She presided over Parliament in April 2009 in her role as Deputy Speaker when MP David Bahati sought approval to submit an Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a private member’s bill, and she was an early supporter after it was first introduced into Parliament in October. After the previous parliament expired before it could bring the bill up for a vote, Kadega helped to engineer the bill’s reintroduction, with the death penalty intact, in the current Parliament.

If the bill does come back up for a vote, past experience suggests that there will be a great deal of misinformation about what the bill would do. I would suggest you keep these links handy:

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

Uganda Parliament May Vote On Anti-Homosexuality Bill By Christmas

Jim Burroway

November 1st, 2012

According to this morning’s Daily Monitor:

Parliament yesterday passed a resolution in recognition of Speaker Rebecca Kadaga’s stand on homosexuality. The House also urged the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee to immediately table its report on the Bill for general debate.

The committee’s chairperson Steven Tashobya yesterday said their report is almost done and will be brought to Parliament before it breaks off for Christmas recess. MPs across the political divide in a plenary session chaired by Ms Kadaga denounced homosexuality and said the country’s moral values are threatened by cultural inventions from the western world.

…The MP for Kinkiizi West, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, moved the motion that was overwhelmingly supported by legislators who committed themselves to passing the anti-homosexuality Bill.

“I rise to add my voice to state clearly that you represented Uganda effectively in Canada. You represented our right to do what we want to do as a country. We have made a point very clearly that we abide by the country’s Constitution which guarantees the right of members and back benchers to move private members Bills and MP Bahati exercised that right,” said Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.

This latest push to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill comes as part of a broader backlash against remarks by Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird, who condemned Uganda’s proposed legislation to impose the death penalty for gay people. The bill would also impose criminal penalties for all advocacy on behalf of gay people, providing lodging and services to gay people, and even knowing someone who is gay and failing to report it to police. The last time the Anti-Homosexuality Bill made it through the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, it emerged with only a few minor tweaks while adding a new crime of “conduct[ing] a marriage ceremony between persons of the same sex,” punishable by three years in prison.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga was an early supporter for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and before that, for increased penalties for homosexuality.  She presided over Parliament in April 2009 in her role as Deputy Speaker when MP David Bahati sought approval to submit an Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a private member’s bill. She helped to engineer the bill’s reintroduction in the current parliament after the previous parliament expired before it could be brought to a vote.