Reports of attacks against homosexual people in Uganda have recently surfaced, after an article ran in the new Ugandan Rolling Stone (no relation to the American magazine) outed 100 Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transgender (LGBT) people, by publishing their names, photos, and even addresses, and called for their hanging.
The article, entitled “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak,” claimed the country’s gay community was trying to “recruit” one million children and that a deadly disease causing “shattered flesh” was spreading because of homosexual behavior.
Brian Nkoyooyo, director of Ice Breakers Uganda, a gay rights organization, says that one gay rights activist had stones thrown at her house while other people have been attacked in bars and in their own houses.
Rolling Stone Editor Giles Muhame said he did not know of any homosexuals had been attacked as a result of his publication, but that if one was killed, it wasn’t his responsibility.
“If you know you are doing something that makes you vulnerable to attack, you leave it,” Muhame said in a phone interview. “If you feel you are going to be lynched, you stop it (the behavior). Even if it happened, it would not be the responsibility of the newspaper. It would be their own mischief that caused the attacks on them.”
The article comes at a time when anti-gay sentiment is at an all-time high in Uganda. The country’s government is coming closer to passing the law that will officially make the act of homosexuality illegal. It is already so in many other African countries.
Ugandan Member of Parliament (MP) David Bahati, who originally submitted the bill in September 2009 told CNN, “We are very confident because this is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children.”
If the bill is passed in its current state, it will contain numerous penalties for different levels of homosexual activities including seven years in prison for “an attempt to commit homosexuality;” five years for landlords who knowingly house gays; three years for anyone, including parents, who fail to hand gay children over to the police within 24 hours of discovering their sexuality. Additionally, the law calls for extradition of gay Ugandans living abroad.
Should any gay man or lesbian engage in sexual activity with someone under the age of 18, then that person will be put to death by hanging.
Bahati defended the strict nature of the bill in an ABC News broadcast saying, “Well, it can sound tough to some people, but it’s acceptable to our community here. Remember that here in Uganda, 95 percent of our population does not support homosexuality.”
