Major backlash over anti-gay Bill

Uganda’s plan to reintroduce a Bill that could impose the death penalty for homosexuality is being met with defiance from the LGBTQ community. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, the government last week said it aims to introduce the death penalty for homosexuals to curb a rise in ‘unnatural sex’. Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo said present laws criminalising gay sex were not harsh enough. ‘The penal code only criminalises the act (gay sex). Now we're saying anything, like recruitment, promotion, exhibition...amounts to committing a crime against that law.’ CNN reports that members of Uganda's LGBTQ community have vowed to fight efforts to reintroduce the Bill. ‘The Bill was meant to make us go underground, but instead the community is organised to fight,’ said Clare Byarugaba, an activist at the rights group Chapter Four. This involved petitioning the courts to repeal the law, lobbying MPs and encouraging international partners to impose economic sanctions, Byarugaba said. In a statement received by Legalbrief, South Africa’s official opposition DA said ‘this inherently homophobic piece of legislation is utterly deplorable, inhumane and undemocratic’. It said no person should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.