Ugandan activists ask parliament to reject anti-gay bill

KAMPALA — Hundreds of anti-AIDS campaigners on Monday urged Ugandan lawmakers to reject a proposed anti-gay law calling for tough penalties against homosexuality, including the death penalty.

Around 400 activists presented parliament speaker Edward Ssekandi with a petition, criticising the bill as a violation of Uganda's constitution.

"The bill is not about protecting Ugandan culture and traditions as it purports. On the contrary it is violating our cultures, traditions and religious values that teach against intolerance, injustice, hatred and violence," one of the activists, Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugisha, said.

"The bill threatens all of us. It threatens the health, peace and the well-being of Ugandan citizens and goes against the Ugandan constitution which provides for freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, colour, ethnicity, tribe, birth and creed," another activist, Rubaramira Ruranga, told AFP.

But the parliament speaker said the bill had to undergo the due process.

"At the moment we cannot block the bill; it has to follow the procedure in the house," Ssekandi told the group.

"As part of this procedure we welcome people with divergent views to submit them so that we take into account these concerns," he added.

The bill, which has sparked widespread international condemnation, would criminalise public discussion of homosexuality and could penalise an individual who knowingly rents property to a homosexual.

It also calls for the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality", in cases of rape of a minor by a person of the same sex, or where one partner carries the virus that can cause AIDS.

Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, punishable by life imprisonment in some instances.

Source: AFP, March 1, 2010