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Loading ...Uganda to tighten law against homosexuality
10.06.2008 2:42pm EDT
(Kampala) The Ugandan government has announced a major offensive against gays and lesbians in the African country, saying it will prosecute anyone who comes out.
Sex between two people of the same sex already is a criminal offense in Uganda – punishable by life imprisonment – but Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo told a weekend news conference he does not know of a single conviction.Buturo said the government is concerned about what he called the “mushrooming” number of gays and lesbians in the country.
Under the legislation being planned it would be illegal just to be gay
“We want it to become law in that if someone is a homosexual or confesses to being a gay or lesbian, then he is a criminal,” Buturo said.
Last year Uganda’s leading Muslim cleric called for gays to be rounded up and marooned on an island in Lake Victoria until they die.
Sheikh Ramathan Shaban Mubajje told reporters of his plan following last October after a much publicized meeting with President Yoweri Museveni.
“I asked President Museveni to get us an island on Lake Victoria and we take these homosexuals and they die out there,” Mubajje said. “If they die there then we shall have no more homosexuals in the country.”
Others at the meeting reportedly said that the president did not respond to the suggestion.
Mubajje’s remarks followed similar threats by other Islamic leaders.
Earlier last year, Muslim Tabliqh youth announced a plan to form an ‘Anti-Gay Squad’ to fight homosexuality in Uganda.
On 28 August 2007, Sheikh Multah Bukenya, a senior cleric in the Tabliqh Organization, was quoted during prayers at Noor Mosque in Kampala as saying that his followers are “ready to act swiftly and form this squad that will wipe out all abnormal practices like homosexuality in our society.”
Anti-gay attacks are commonplace in Uganda but have increased since August when Ugandan LGBT rights groups for the first time held a public news conference to demand basic civil rights. Many of the participants wore disguises out of fears of government reprisals.
A week later supporters of a coalition of Christian and Muslim religious groups filled a downtown stadium demanding mass arrests of gays.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission last year said that it had uncovered evidence that the Bush administration has funded groups in Uganda that actively promote violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.
Among those receiving money, according to US government records, is Uganda Muslim Tabliqh, and the Makerere University Community Church,
The church’s leader, Pastor Martin Ssempa, was a leading organizer of the anti-gay rally in Kampala.
Ssempa and his coalition, which includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, also have threatened the safety of Ugandan LGBT rights activists by posting their names, photos and addresses on a Web site.
It does not suprise me that the Bush Adm would have something to do with this. Thank God this Devil is on his way out.
I wouldn’t count the Bush administration out just yet. There is still a few months left and so much can happen in that time.
I am also not surprised the Bush administration is involved. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to find out that even more of the Christian leaders are supporting such violence against their fellow humans. It seems they cannot learn from history what happens to people who abuse their power over others.
these are AFrican regimes and many African regimes are often by nature intensely homophobic. African society and culture has long been homophobic.
Look at Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, an intensely homophobic man. Even Libyan Arab leader Ghaddafi is not in favor of gays. To say that Bush is behind so many antigay leaders from Egypt and Libya to Uganda to Namibia to Zimbabwe as being guided by Bush on this when it is a culturel thing etc. And with gay marriage legal in South Africa a very multi-ethnic society of Indians, Africans, people of white European. descent, etc. Bush I think is busy enough and has no ability to influnce every single one of over 180 or so countries around the world.
Why does this not surprise me? This
vile administration has a history of
sneaky behavior, not to mention lies
and deceit. These countries, such as
Uganda should be boycotted in the
UN and sanctions should be made on
them via economics. People/countries
always seem to then pay attention when
it affects their wallets! Stop the
evil in its tracks before it’s too late!
Wake up Bono, before anyone sends another dime to African charities, think about where your money is going.
It is despicable to paint Africans as inherently homophobic – there are so many hundreds of cultures and languages on that beautiful continent; one should never lump them all together.
However, it is high time for the US and Europe to set standards of human decency. Aid-recipient nations must be held accountable to their own people and must uphold civil liberties for all persons.
There is no reason on earth to send a dime of economic aid to Uganda or Zimbabwe to prop up their vile regimes.
Dignity and respect are African and human values – the South African constitution enumerates more civil liberties than the American document; so please, we must refrain from cultural ignorance and support aid to nations that counters this disgusting anti-Gay sentiment.
Islam, last time I checked, meant ‘peace’. Those who wish to kill in the name of God are cowards and evil – boy will they be surprised with their ‘heavenly’ reward!
WOW – I just checked the US government website, pepfar.gov, and guess what?
The US is forking over $283 million to Uganda in the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Stunning.
I wonder if we can get our money back.
Greg747 said: “Islam, last time I checked, meant ‘peace’.”
No, it doesn’t, contrary to attempts by many Muslims to make that misleading claim. It literally means submission, and has an indirect, derived meaning of peace through submission. Here’s the etymology of the word Islam, from the American Heritage Dictionary: “Arabic ‘islām, submission, from ‘aslama, to surrender, resign oneself, from Syriac ‘ašlem, to make peace, surrender, derived stem of šlem, to be complete.”
By the way, the South African constitution is exceptional in Africa, and is largely due to the successes of the anti-apartheid movement and its leaders, such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu. I don’t have the impression, however, that gays feel all that safe among the local populace.
This is alarming. Doesn’t this sound like the Nazi death squads as they swept through Germany.
What a disgusting place!
How sad that Uganda has reverted to the control of savages. Africans have had such a long battle for independence and freedom—it is tragic that ignorant thugs have been allowed to take over some of their country’s governments…..especially in view of the fact that the African continent has given us such champions of humanity as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
Islam has never meant “peace.” In fact, that mantra comes directly from a speech given by George W. Bush – that great Muslim scholar – at the Islamic Center of Washington DC on September 17, 2001. It has since been appropriated by apologists for radicalism in the West. The Arabic is usually translated as either “surrender” or “submission” (presumably to God).
With regards to South Africa in particular, I think you have to look at the unique history of apartheid. One of the (many) neurotic obsessions of the apartheid regime involved trying to find new ways to pressure white people into breeding. They needed more “racially pure” children to fight the Africans. Thus, homosexuality was a definite no-no. Forced attempts to “cure” homosexuality among whites was common during apartheid (including the use of electro-shock therapy on gay soldiers).
Consequently, gays became one of the few white sub-groups to speak out against the racism. Some even secretly aided the “terrrorist” ANC. These efforts were not forgotten when the system of racial segregation collasped. The ANC – now the ruling party – quickly moved to thank the gay community for their support by adding the sexual orientation clause to the SA constitution.
Oh ye boys persevere!
Paramole in action!
Pandemonium in the land
thick cloud shrouded community
chunky fug blurs even the well lit lanes
everyone gropes in the dark.
self-seekers and
opportunists, blindfolded their
minds with religious naiveté,
injecting the venom of hatred
in defense of a God they know not
and guarding a culture long lost.
For years they twisted the message
Leading the populace through the dark to
path designed for innocent murder
soiling the hands of the gullible, the ignorant.
Oh! Good shepherd of
the sheep, deliver your flock from the
venom of these Paramole (carpet snakes)
quick to accuse, fast to strike
Armed with acts way far from yours.
Oh ye boys persevere
The world watches the game
Keep their masquerade on its toes
Till the world see the gimmick and their foolery
Be not broken by their threat
Nor break from the race, till the serpent’s head is crushed.
The legs betrays the drag
The voice away gives him
But the fun goes on, delighting the heart of men.
Demola…well done, very nice.