Decision by Ugandan President Museveni to give his assent to controversial anti-gay law condemned by Conservatives.
The new law imposes a life sentence on those who commit a new offence of “aggressive homosexuality.”
LGBTory patron and former Prisons and Youth Justice minister Crispin Blunt said: “President Museveni has signed the Ugandan anti-homosexuality law, quoting Ugandan medical authorities in explanation. This Pontius Pilate defence will not wash in the light of history.
“His position is arguably worse, because he has given every indication of understanding the issues. He knows his pseudo-scientists have produced bigoted baloney that flies in the face of global medical opinion.
“Ugandan decision makers have united in this piece of populist cruelty directed at a minority of their own people. They must now face at least some modest consequences themselves. A travel ban seems wholly appropriate.”
Mark Simmonds, Conservative minister for Africa at the Foreign Office, raised the issue with President Museveni when he visited Kampala last year and discussed the law with Foreign Minister Kotesa shortly after it was passed by the Ugandan parliament on December 20.
Commenting on the bill’s passing, another Conservative Foreign Office minister Hugh Robertson described it as: “incompatible with the defence of minority rights” stating that it “would increase persecution and discrimination of ordinary people across Uganda”.
The Department for International Development (DFID) has provided funding to the NGO Sexual Minorities Uganda for training, advocacy and the cost of legal cases related to the protection of LGBT communities and ministers from DFID and the Department of Energy and Climate Change met with the organisation’s executive director Frank Mugisha when he visited London earlier this month.
You must be logged in to post a comment.