Outcry as Uganda’s antigay bill signed into law
Uganda announced yesterday that President Yoweri Museveni had signed into law draconian new measures against homosexuality described as among the world’s harshest, prompting condemnation from human rights and LGBQT groups.
The passage of the anti-gay bill comes despite warnings from Uganda’s international partners, including close ally the US, of repercussions should the controversial proposal become law.
Museveni “assented to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023. It now becomes the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023,” a statement posted on the presidency’s official Twitter account said, accompanied by an image of the veteran leader signing a document.
Uganda’s parliament said on Twitter that Museveni had approved a new draft of the legislation that was passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers in the East African nation earlier this month.
MPs had vowed to resist outside pressure over the bill, which they cast as interference in an effort to protect Uganda’s national culture and values from Western immorality.
Museveni had called on parliament to rework the bill, although most of the hardline provisions that caused an outcry in the West were retained.
The amended version said that identifying as gay would not be criminalised but “engaging in acts of homosexuality” would be an offence punishable with life imprisonment.
Although Museveni had advised lawmakers to delete a provision making “aggravated homosexuality” a capital offence, lawmakers rejected that move, meaning that repeat offenders could be sentenced to death.
Uganda has not resorted to capital punishment for years.
The UN Human Rights Office – whose commissioner Volker Turk in March described the bill as “among the worst of its kind in the world” – condemned its passage into law. (AFP)