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Uganda: now no death sentence for gays
Uganda 'to drop death penalty from Anti-Homosexuality Bill'
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill will now not include the death sentence or life imprisonment when it is presented to parliament at the end of this month, it has been reported.
According to news agency Bloomberg, Uganda's minister of ethics and integrity James Nsaba Buturo said a refined version of the draft bill currently under consideration by a parliamentary committee will drop these two punishments in order to attract the support of religious leaders opposed to these penalties.
In its original form, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as proposed by Ndorwa West MP David Baharti would make life imprisonment the minimum punishment for some homosexual acts, with the death penalty imposed for so-called "aggravated homosexuality" offences: when the accused is HIV positive, a serial offender, a "person of authority", or has sex with those under 18.
However, Buturo said that while the Ugandan government supports the bill because homosexuality and lesbianism are "repugnant to the Ugandan culture", other punishments will now be formulated, along with counselling to "attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation".
The bill was condemned by gay rights organisations when it was first proposed in October. The governments of the US, France and the UK all expressed concern, but more pressure was applied recently when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech alluding to the administration's recent grant of $250m in development assistance to Uganda, said: "We have to stand against any efforts to marginalize and criminalize and penalize members of the LGBT community worldwide."
At the end of last month, Sweden's development assistance minister Gunilla Carlsson said that aid from her country could also be affected if the bill entered the statute book, to which Buturo retorted: "It is revealing that support to Uganda literally translated means that it is on condition that Uganda should do the bidding of givers of such support regardless of what Ugandans themselves think."
