Uganda Announces ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill That Will Ensure Death Penalty For Homosexuals

This is surely not a good time to a gay in Uganda. As the world is progressively embracing homosexuality and other sexual orientations, you dare not declare to be homosexual in Uganda.

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Why? Because Uganda has announced plans to bring back the ‘kill the gays’ bill that will ensure the death penalty for any individual who is found to be homosexual.

The legislation, known as the ‘Kill the Gays’ bill, was nullified in 2014 on a technicality, but the government now has plans to resurrect it within weeks. 

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‘Homosexuality is not natural to Ugandans, but there has been a massive recruitment by gay people in schools, and especially among the youth, where they are promoting the falsehood that people are born like that,’ Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo said.

‘Our current penal law is limited. It only criminalizes the act. We want it made clear that anyone who is even involved in promotion and recruitment has to be criminalized. Those that do grave acts will be given the death sentence.’ 

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African countries like Uganda have some of the world’s most prohibitive laws governing homosexuality. Same-sex relationships are considered taboo and gay sex is a crime across most of the continent, with punishments ranging from imprisonment to death.

Lokodo said Uganda’s bill, which is supported by President Yoweri Museveni, will be reintroduced in parliament in the coming weeks, and it is expected to be voted on before the end of the year.

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He was optimistic it would pass with the necessary two-thirds of members present – a shortfall in numbers killed a similar bill in 2014 – as the government had lobbied legislators ahead of its re-introduction.

‘We have been talking to the MPs and we have mobilized them in big numbers,’ said Lokodo. ‘Many are supportive.’

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Even without the bill, under British colonial law, gay sex is punishable with up to life imprisonment and activists said the new bill risked unleashing attacks.

Uganda faced widespread international condemnation when the previous bill was signed off by Museveni in 2014 but it doesn’t look like the country cares about what the international community thinks anymore.