Ugandan activists brace for ratification of harsh anti-homosexuality bill
Uganda, anti-discrimination activists are calling on the president not to ratify the bill.Nicholas Opiyo, one of Uganda's top human rights lawyers, told RFI that President Museveni, who has 30 days to sign the bill, is in a difficult position on the issue as he faces potential sanctions from his international partners. “Museveni has shifted his position a little bit from 2014, when he said that LGBT people were disgusting”, Opiyo said.“Now, he seems mostly preoccupied with what he calls the promotion of homosexual activities.
Nonetheless, he has to deal with a constituency that has always highly supported the anti-homosexuality law, but he also has to take into account the view of the rest of the world."That makes the bill “both a domestic matter and a foreign policy matter”, Opiyo points out. “So it’s a very difficult position.
But my opinion is that Museveni will sign up to this law, though I’m hoping he doesn’t.”Opiyo also pointed out the role that conservative American Christian groups have played in promoting anti-LGBTQ+ policies in Uganda.“Ugandans have no time to care about who you love and what you do in your private life,” he told RFI. “There are more pressing issues here.“Homosexuality in Uganda, and in the whole of Africa is not imported from the West, but the hatred against it definitely is,” he said.Stella Nyanzi, a prominent Ugandan human rights advocate who was arrested for insulting Museveni and now lives in exile in Germany, has fiercely criticised the bill on social media.“I was inside the Constitutional Court when the Anti-Homosexuality Act was annulled in 2014,” she wrote on Twitter. “I will celebrate again when Uganda revokes homophobic laws.”In another post, she warned: “Alas, we are witnessing a.
