Uganda MPs falsified gay report
Mail & Guardian Online - 8 hours ago
The ministerial team tasked with advising President Yoweri Museveni on
homosexuality falsified and twisted information in an expert
scientific report.
Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show that the
Ugandan ministerial task team asked by the president to advise him on
homosexuality falsified the information contained in the report given
by medical and psychological experts, twisting it to show that
homosexuality should indeed be further criminalised.
The law, which Uganda's Parliament passed in December 2013, proposes
severe penalties for same-sex romantic and sexual behaviour.
Read: Minutes of the first task force meeting on the homosexuality debate
Read: Minutes of the second task force meeting on the homosexuality debate
Read: National Resistance Movement Caucus report
Read: Uganda scientist consensus statement on homosexuality
Under international pressure, President Yoweri Museveni delayed
signing the controversial Bill into law, asking for a panel of experts
to be convened to advise on whether homosexuality was "learned"
behaviour or an inborn condition.
The experts - including academics from Marekere University and
officials in the Ugandan ministry of health - said that, in their view
and in terms of the best current medical knowledge, "homosexuality has
no clear-cut cause", though they adduce some limited genetic evidence,
and that "several factors are involved which differ from individual to
individual. It is not a disease that has a treatment."
The Scientist Consensus Statement concludes that homosexuality is not
a disease or an "abnormality", but that it "can be influenced by
environmental factors" such as "culture, religion, information,
permissiveness". Homosexual behaviour, the statement says, "needs
regulation like any other human behaviour, especially to protect the
vulnerable", and concludes: "There is need for studies to address
sexualities in the African context."
By contrast, in the report to the president in the name of the caucus
of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), this is glossed as:
"Homosexuality is not a disease but merely an abnormal behaviour which
may be learned through experiences in life." It quotes the experts
saying that the "practice should be regulated", following that with
the statement: "Presidential Advisor on Science Dr Richard
Tushemereirwe stated that homosexuality has serious Public Health
consequences and should therefore not be tolerated."
Tushemereirwe was not part of the 10-member scientists' panel.
'Victory for Uganda'
The Bill was first mooted in Uganda in 2009, when it proposed the
death penalty for homosexual activities. A global outcry followed,
with objections raised then and later by African rights groups and
Western politicians and donors, but MPs finally pushed the Bill
through Parliament in December.
MP David Bahati, the Bill's sponsor, said it was a "victory for
Uganda" and for African tradition against Western influences. But the
anti-gay thrust of the Bill has also been driven by Christian
evangelical groups working in Uganda. Gay activists from Uganda sued
American missionary Scott Lively, under the "alien torts" law, for
spreading homophobia in Africa. Other
African countries such as Nigeria have recently passed anti-gay laws
.
The new law, which awaits Museveni's signature, updates a colonial-era
law regulating "carnal knowledge against the order of nature". It
extends the penalty of life imprisonment for actual gay sex to all
behaviour, including touching, that might lead to or show an intention
to have homosexual sex: it penalises "any erotic behaviour intended to
cause sexual excitement or any indecent act or behaviour tending to
corrupt morals".
Earlier this year, in a letter to a Ugandan newspaper, Museveni wrote:
"You cannot call an abnormality an alternative orientation. It could
be that the Western societies, on account of random breeding, have
generated many abnormal people." He added that he thought others might
become gay for "mercenary reasons" or, in the case of lesbians, a lack
of sex with men.
The law also makes it a crime, punishable by a prison term of up to
seven years, for a citizen to fail to report homosexual activity to
the authorities.
US President Barack Obama called the law "odious". Human Rights Watch
has said it is "appalling", even without the death sentence. Amnesty
International said the law "amounts to a grave assault on human
rights".
The Ugandan Parliament also passed a law banning pornography and other
forms of what it regards as sexual titillation, such as miniskirts.
Shaun de Waal has worked at the Mail & Guardian since 1989 and is now
the editor of the paper's comment and analysis section.
Read more from Shaun de Waal
Twitter: @shaundewaal
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