Ugandan minister: Western human rights sanctions forced country to join BRICS
Ugandan Foreign Affairs Minister Henry Oryem has revealed U.S. and EU sanctions over the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act and other human rights violations have pushed Kampala to join the BRICS bloc.
Oryem noted Western powers’ decision to sanction other countries without U.N. input is against international norms, and Uganda needed to shield itself from such actions by aligning with the bloc that includes China, Russia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran, and Indonesia. (Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.) Kampala officially became a BRICS member on Jan.
1, joining eight other countries whose applications for admission were approved last October during the bloc’s 16th annual summit in Kazan, Russia. “The United States and European Union, whenever they impose sanctions, expect all those other countries to make sure they abide by those sanctions and if you don’t, you face penalties or even they sanction you,” Oryem said.
