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The bill marks the latest in a string of setbacks for LGBTQ+rights in Africa, where homosexuality is illegal in most countries. In Uganda, a largely conservative Christian country, homosexual sex was already\u00a0punishable by life imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human rights campaigners have condemned the new move to enact the harsh law, describing it as \u201chate legislation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday marks a tragic day in Uganda\u2019s history.\u00a0@Parliament_Ug\u00a0has passed legislation that promotes hatred and seeks to strip LGBTIQ individuals of their fundamental rights!\u201d\u00a0tweetedSarah Kasande, a Kampala-based lawyer and human rights activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe provisions of the anti-homosexuality bill are barbaric, discriminatory and unconstitutional,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She added: \u201cTo the LGBTIQ community, I know this is a difficult day, but please don\u2019t lose hope. The battle is not over; this repugnant bill will ultimately be struck down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gay activist Eric Ndawula\u00a0tweeted: \u201cToday\u2019s events in parliament are not just immoral, but a complete assault on humanity. It\u2019s frightening that our MPs\u2019 judgment is clouded by hate & homophobia. Who benefits from this draconian law?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 110 LGBTQ+ people in\u00a0Uganda\u00a0reported incidents including arrests, sexual violence, evictions and public undressing to advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) in February alone. Transgender people were disproportionately affected, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a lesbian activist in Kampala, said efforts to overturn the legislation would continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We shall continue to fight this injustice. This lesbian woman is Ugandan even this piece of paper will [not] stop me from enjoying my country. Struggle just begun,\u201d said Nabagesera in a\u00a0tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kasande said: \u201cWe will fight until all individuals in Uganda can enjoy the rights guaranteed to them by the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Museveni last month said Uganda will not embrace homosexuality, claiming that the west was seeking to compel other countries to \u201cnormalise\u201d what he called \u201cdeviations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe western countries should stop wasting the time of humanity by trying to impose their practices on other people,\u201d said Museveni in a televised address to parliament on 16 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHomosexuals are deviations from the normal. Why? Is it by nature or by nurture? We need to answer those questions. We need a medical opinion on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that parliament would, once again, pass a bill that is clearly in contravention of several basic human rights,\u201d said Oryem Nyeko, a researcher in the\u00a0Africa\u00a0division at Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis just opens the door for more regressive laws and for people\u2019s rights to be violated across the board. President Museveni shouldn\u2019t assent to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MPs in\u00a0Uganda\u00a0have passed a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which would make homosexual acts punishable by death, attracting strong condemnation from rights campaigners. All but two of the 389 legislators voted late on Tuesday for the\u00a0hardline anti-homosexuality bill,which introduces capital and life imprisonment sentences for gay sex and \u201crecruitment, promotion and funding\u201d of same-sex \u201cactivities\u201d. \u201cA person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[7603,1648,11043,183,9831,11941,11583,8927,10000,9088,9560,10507,7234,8948,9127,6560,10002,10840,5661,13036,10321,12380,10954,10342,12329,10776,8483,2717,278,2402,8096,422,11973,1198,3805,7650,11307,7584,10041,8840,5511,1064,6555,10943,3954,5273,594],"class_list":["post-30276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-activist","tag-africa","tag-anti-lgbtq","tag-assault","tag-barbaric","tag-bill","tag-capital","tag-christian","tag-conservative","tag-container","tag-conviction","tag-court","tag-death","tag-death-sentence","tag-february","tag-gay","tag-homosexual","tag-human-rights","tag-human-rights-watch","tag-humanity","tag-illegal","tag-injustice","tag-international","tag-law","tag-laws","tag-lawyer","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbtq","tag-mp","tag-mps","tag-museveni","tag-offence","tag-one","tag-parliament","tag-president","tag-recruitment","tag-sentence","tag-sex","tag-speech","tag-strong","tag-transgender","tag-uganda","tag-veto","tag-watch","tag-will","tag-woman","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}