Kadaga Blasts Canadian Minister Over Homosexuality

Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga on Monday defended the country’s stance on homosexuality, saying Uganda would not accept being bulldozed to permit this sexual orientation. 

Drama started unfolding when Canada Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird abandoned host-country niceties Monday as he leveled a blistering attack against the human rights records of Iran, Syria and Uganda before some 1,400 international parliamentarians gathered for the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Quebec.

Iranian and Ugandan delegates at the IPU assembly, including the African nation’s Speaker of Parliament, protested Baird’s remarks, accusing the minister of meddling in their sovereign affairs at a collegial forum.

Even though the Conservative government has cut off diplomatic relations with Iran and Syria in particular, it could do little to stop the presence of legislators from those countries at the 127th conference of the IPU, which Canada is hosting this year.

Metro News is reporting Baird embraced that bit of awkwardness, seizing on the IPU assembly’s theme this year: respect for diversity.

The IPU’s mandate includes the promotion of human rights and democracy, but its members still include nations such as North Korea and Cuba.

“Sadly, there are forces of evil in this world that use our differences as weapons of hate, weapons of hate that marginalize minorities,” Baird said.

“This is where we as free societies, I believe, have a tremendously important role to play.”

Baird encouraged the legislators to tell their respective parliaments to support Canada’s United Nations resolution each year condemning Iran’s human rights record. He cited examples of violence against religious minorities.

“There’s a great principle at stake. While Canada prizes engagement and open relations, there can be no engagement with a regime that dishonours its word, repudiates its commitments and threatens to perpetuate crimes against humanity,” Baird said of Iran.

“This regime stands for everything we parliamentarians should stand against.”

Baird also took on the Ugandan government again for its treatment of gays and lesbians. He mentioned the case of a young activist who was recently beaten to death.

The criticism didn’t sit well with the speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, who asked for the opportunity to respond. She spoke of Baird’s “arrogance” and “ignorance” and demanded an apology.

“If homosexuality is a value for the Canadian people, that’s not a problem for us, that’s it’s issue, but one shouldn’t force Ugandans to accept homosexuality because we’re not Canadian citizens,” Kadaga said to applause from the floor.

 “We have our problems, they have theirs.”

The Uganda Parliament is debating a proposed legislation that seeks tough penalties for aggravated homosexual convicts.

Ndorwa West MP David Bahati says his private members’ bill seeks to safeguard the country’s moral fabric, the traditional family setting and humanity from extinction.

However, the legislator has since come under fire from pro-gay activists who claim the Bill will violate the human rights of homosexuals.

The small Iranian delegation held up the sign bearing their country’s name during Baird’s speech in protest.

Iraj Nadimi, chairman of the executive council of Iran’s inter-parliamentary group, asked reporters whether Canada would like it if Iran began wading into its domestic affairs, such as Quebec sovereignty.

“This is not the place for that, that we are asking for the independence of people who are requesting independence in Quebec,” Nadimi said through an interpreter.

“We are saying that every country has its own regulations for itself, so we cannot receive any interference from any country and we don’t interfere in another country’s affairs.”

“Sometimes the truth hurts,” Baird said later.

“I know staying silent is never an option when people stone women, when they hang gays, when they incite genocide, when they say they want to wipe the Jewish people and the Jewish state off the map, when they dishonour their UN obligations, when they spread hateful and racist rhetoric.”

The IPU is the oldest multilateral organization in the world, predating the League of Nations and the United Nations. Canada has been a member for 100 years.http://www.chimpreports.com/index.php/news/6551-kadaga-blasts-canadian-minister-over-homosexuality.html

Ugandan Hang the Gays Giles Muhame Admits Wrong and Regret

But fails to apologize to the gays and does nothing to make amends to the LGBTI community in Uganda

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 10, 2012

In a self serving speech to a journalism class, Giles Muhame, the ex-editor of the Ugandan Rolling Stone Magazine, makes an admission of causing harm to gays and notes his regret for the “Hang the gays” article that he procured back in 2010.
Muhame wrote an article outing and exposing 100 gays in Uganda by showing their photographs and depicting a hang rope with the notation “Hang them!” This caused untold harm and some gay Ugandans were beaten, arrested and others fled the country.http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2012/10/10/ugandan-hang-the-gays-giles-muhame-admits-wrong-and-regret/

Clinton hails gay rights activists in wary Uganda

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday praised activists who opposed a tough draft law in Uganda targeting gays and lesbians, calling them an inspiration for others struggling to secure equal rights around the world.
Clinton presented a coalition of Ugandan rights groups with the State Department's 2011 Human Rights Defender Award, a signal to African and Islamic nations that Washington will not backtrack in its fight against the legal and political persecution of homosexuals.
"It is critical for all Ugandans - the government and citizens alike - to speak out against discrimination, harassment, and intimidation of anyone. That's true no matter where they come from, what they believe, or whom they love," Clinton said.
Clinton said she raised the issue in talks on Friday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, whose government has been accused of allowing political and religious leaders to drum up anti-gay feeling in the deeply conservative East African nation.
"You are a model for others and an inspiration for the world," Clinton said to representatives of the group, formed in 2009 to combat draft legislation which proposed the death penalty for anyone convicted of "aggravated homosexuality".
The bill, which spurred a global outcry, stalled in parliament but has been reintroduced in a watered down form by a member of Museveni's party.
The new version dropped the death sentence, but would still outlaw the "promotion" of gay rights and punish anyone who "funds, sponsors or abets homosexuality".
Clinton's strong expression of support for Uganda's beleaguered gay community came as she continued a seven-nation trip across Africa.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/03/us-uganda-clinton-idUSBRE8721FH20120803

Ugandan Parliament Should Reject Anti-Homosexuality Bill

PRESS STATEMENT ON ANTI HOMOSEXUALITY BILL

Uganda: Parliament Should Reject Anti-Homosexuality Bill

On Tuesday 7th February 2012, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009) was reintroduced to the Parliament of Uganda. If passed, this draft legislation would violate the human rights of all Ugandans, and should immediately be dropped, the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP), Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), The Human Rights Centre Uganda (HRCU), and Human Rights Network-Uganda (HURINET) said today.

Hon. David Bahati’s widely condemned private member’s bill is one of ten bills saved and reintroduced from the previous Parliament. The bill had its first reading on 7^th February 2012 and was referred to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee for scrutiny. It is understood that the bill was re-tabled in its original form but that amendments recommended by the Committee last year will be incorporated. Although Hon. Bahati is reported in the media to have said that the death penalty for ‘serial’ acts of homosexuality will be dropped, this is not yet confirmed. EHAHRDP, FHRI, HRCU and HURINET express their concern at the lack of clarity surrounding the parliamentary process and contents of the bill, and call on Parliament to clarify on this matter.
http://www.hrcug.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=148:press-statement-on-anti-homosexuality-bill&catid=44:news&Itemid=180&date=2012-08-01 

Uganda: Government raid on LGBT-rights workshop | Amnesty International

Uganda: Government raid on LGBT-rights workshop | Amnesty International

The world must know and act against this impunity by the government of Uganda, fundamental human rights are not negotiable. 

Uganda making life tough for NGOs, LGBT rights by

By

 Maria Burnett 

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Uganda has made the news in recent months over issues like the Ebola virus, Joseph Kony, and the notorious anti-homosexuality law known as the “kill the gays bill.” Less-well-known has been its longstanding patterns of torture and mistreatment of detainees by security forces.

President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling National Resistance Movement have been in power for more than 25 years, with a 2005 constitutional amendment lifting presidential term limits and permitting him to run and win in 2006, and then again, heavily assisted by off-budget spending from state coffers, in 2011.

Since 2011, Museveni has faced increasing criticism for economic woes, corruption, unemployment, rising HIV rates and deteriorating health and education services. In April 2011, demonstrators “walked to work” to protest raising food and fuel prices. The military and police took to the streets, using live ammunition and killing at least nine bystanders and beating journalists documenting the events. The government has routinely blocked demonstrations in the last few years, contending that they threaten public safety.

The president appears to be preparing to run again in 2016 – which would be his 30th year in office – and it seems no coincidence that in the wake of growing public grievances, the ruling party’s officials are scrutinizing nongovernmental organizations and the impact they have on public perceptions of governance and management of public funds.

Organizations working on human rights, land acquisitions, oil revenue transparency, and other sensitive issues are the main targets, and apparently viewed as a threat to the administration’s interests. Uganda’s laws reflect this analysis. The intelligence agencies are legally mandated to monitor civil society, and the president’s office has a role in reviewing requests to do research, via the Uganda Council on Science and Technology.

Over the last two years, Ugandan officials have reportedly closed civil society meetings and workshops, reprimanded organizations for their research, demanded retractions or apologies, and confiscated t-shirts, calendars and training materials with messaging about political change and “people’s power.” The government board mandated to regulate civil society recently recommended dissolving one group unless it apologized for bringing “the person of the president into disrepute” and has stated that  working in coalitions is unlawful.

At the same time the government’s hostility to, and harassment of, Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community continues unabated. Government officials demonize homosexuality, deliberately misinform the public, and stir hatred. One minister uses “the promotion of homosexuality” – a spurious claim – as justification for his campaign against any group seeking to protect the rights of LGBT people. He told me that the pursuit of LGBT rights is a Western conspiracy aimed at destroying Uganda.

While homosexual sex is illegal in Uganda, it is not illegal to discuss LGBT issues, despite the deeply misguided anti-gay bill still pending before parliament. Groups focused on fighting for the rights of LGBT people therefore have every legal right to register and operate. But in practice, that remains far from possible. While many interpret the government’s increasing focus on homosexuality as a populist strategy to gain support, it is still profoundly dangerous for a community that is vulnerable to harassment and violence.

Donors need to ask tough questions about where Uganda is heading, given the deteriorating situation for civil society. Furthermore, in today’s Uganda, government institutions have little independence to perform their constitutionally mandated jobs, corruption is rife, and protecting the ruling party and the president from criticism has become more important than citizens’ right to information. Fundamental democratic guarantees such as freedom of expression and association should not take a back seat to security interests. Ultimately, this is the lesson of the Arab spring.

Until Ugandan civil society is free to research, publish, speak out, debate and advocate for change without fear, durable security will remain out of reach.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/30/uganda-making-life-tough-ngos-lgbt-rights

Maria Burnett is a senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.