A UK Liberal Democrat MP and a Ugandan bishop are calling for a gay asylum seeker to be given the right to stay in the UK. Mike Hancock, the MP for Portsmouth South, and Anglican Bishop Christopher Senyonjo say that 33-year-old Robert Segwanyi will face harassment and possibly violence if he is sent home.
Ugandan man who was convicted of raping a 28 year-old woman is asking for UK asylum – on the grounds that he is gay, reports the UK’s Pink Paper.
It’s confirmed that the Ugandan parliament has adjourned without debating a controversial bill which includes the death penalty for gays. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been condemned by Western leaders and human rights groups, many of whom are still celebrating this "victory".
Uganda’s parliament appeared Wednesday to have dropped plans to debate a controversial anti-gay bill after a global outcry from all over the world, most notably the US and the UK.
This anti-gay bill was first proposed in 2009 but wasn’t debated until last Friday. The bill had been scheduled to be debated before the full parliament today (Wednesday) but was dropped from the schedule.
Pastor Martin Ssempa is known for his fiery rhetoric against homosexuality rejects the gay death penalty bill. However, he wants tighter laws to prevent gays from having freedom.
Gay rights campaigners hope to collect enough signatures to ask Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to refuse to sign an anti-homosexuality bill.
The legislation, in its current form, calls for harsher punishments for homosexuality. For “aggravated” case, such as those involving disabled people, those with HIV or minors, it calls for the death penalty.
Landlords, teachers and family members could also be prosecuted for failing to report gay people to police.
The status of the bill has been unclear for months, with conflicting reports about its progress through the legislature.
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The Rt. Rev. Christopher Senyonjo, retired Anglican bishop of West Buganda issued his first public statement today on the recent murder of human rights advocate David Kato. The bishop worked with Kato through Integrity Uganda and the Civil Society Coalition (composed of 34 human rights organizations including the St. Paul’s Centre for Reconciliation and Equality, headed by the bishop). Both men were pictured on the front page of the controversial Ugandan tabloid “Rolling Stone” where the names and addresses of leading LGBT Ugandans and allies were exposed and called for their execution. Kato was one of the plaintiffs in the case that successfully brought a court injunction to stop the paper’s publication.
Just a few months before his brutal murder last week, David Kato was in London to attend an international conference on HIV and AIDS.
It is hard to imagine someone so physically small taking on the Ugandan establishment, but that is exactly what this softly spoken gay rights activist did, every day of his life.
Police in Uganda have arrested a man over the murder of the activist David Kato, saying the killing was not related to his campaign for gay rights. Reports The UK’s Guardian.
Great post By Anna Cavell on the BBC website,
David Kato came to personify the fight for homosexual rights in Uganda
A prominent gay rights campaigner in Uganda, recently found beaten to death, played a key role in drawing international attention to the country's homophobic laws and helped the silenced gay community to find its voice.
David Kato was a small man by Ugandan standards. He wore glasses and had the air of an intellectual.
The murder of Ugandan activist David Kato wasn't just a chance for political leaders to speak out against legalized and institutional persecution, as Barack Obama did. Reports Queerty. It's also an opportunity for another class of the globe's figureheads to take a stand. Like the religious ones. And Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has done exactly that.
From Pink News, comes a report that a Ugandan lesbian asylum seeker who was granted a last minute reprieve from deportation to Uganda was rejected the right to remain in the UK because she didn’t own magazines or other literature relating to her sexuality it has been revealed.
Brenda Namigadde, 29, was due to fly from Heathrow at 9:20 pm on Friday evening and was already on board the aircraft at when an injunction stopping the deportation was granted. The deportation was to take place little more than 48 hours after the prominent Ugandan LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) rights campaigner David Kato was violently murdered in a homophobic incident.
The blog Political Scrapbook claims to have seen documents from her first-tier tribunal immigration judge.
“The Appellant appears to have taken no interest in forms of media by magazines, books, or other information relating to her sexual orientation,” the judge is claimed to have said, adding: “While there is no requirement to do so it does seem strange … that she has not done so.”
See more - Pink News
Taking a visibly more liberal stand, the Ugandan opposition leader has reportedly suggested that homosexuality should be decriminalised in the country.
Kizza Besigye, who head up a big four-party opposition group, is to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in a vote next month.
During a televised debate, Mr Besigye said that homosexuality had “generated far too much excitement” among current government leaders and that police resources could be better used.
He stressed he was giving his own opinion, rather than speaking for his party, AFP reported “This is something that is done in the privacy of people’s rooms, between consenting adults,” although he declined to comment on if he thought homosexuality was immoral, as is a common belief in the country where homosexual acts are illegal.
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Uganda's High Court has ruled that the media should not publish the names and photos of gay Ugandans following a vitriolic campaign which urged citizens to hang those featured.
Justice Kibuuka Musoke ordered Uganda's Rolling Stone magazine to pay $650 in damages and court costs for each of the three men who sued the magazine. The men were only three of 100 Ugandans listed in the magazine in October. They said they were attacked after they were identified as gay underneath a banner headline reading "Hang them."
Monday's ruling follows years of persecution of gay Ugandans. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda but recently gay rights groups have begun protesting their treatment. Many Ugandans accuse gay men and women of recruiting children to a gay lifestyle, a charge activists reject as preposterous.
