(CNN) The United Nations and United States on Wednesday added to international outrage over a harsh law passed by Ugandan lawmakers that criminalizes simple identification as LGBTQ+, mandates life imprisonment for convicted homosexuals and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni not to sign the law passed by lawmakers on Tuesday. Volker Türk called the anti-homosexuality law 2023 “draconian”, it would have negative effects on society as a whole and violate the country’s constitution.
“The passage of this discriminatory law – probably one of the worst of its kind in the world – is a deeply worrying development,” Türk’s office said in a statement.
“If signed by the President, it will turn lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda into criminals simply because they exist, because they are who they are. It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of almost all of their human rights and serve to turn people against each other.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized the law, which “would undermine basic human rights of all Ugandans and reverse achievements in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” he tweeted Wednesday. “We urge the Ugandan government to reconsider the implementation of this legislation.”
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke to Museveni twice this week to express “deep concern” about the legislation, a US official told CNN on Wednesday.
The new legislation represents another crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in a country where same-sex relationships were already illegal – and punishable by life imprisonment. It targets a range of activities and includes a ban on promoting and abetting homosexuality and conspiring to engage in homosexuality.
According to the draft law, the death penalty can be imposed for cases of “elevated homosexuality” – a broad term used in legislation to describe sexual acts committed without consent or under duress against children, people with intellectual disabilities or physical disabilities become, of a “serial offender” or incest.
The bill must now be submitted to Museveni for approval. Last week he ridiculed homosexuals as “deviants.”
Uganda made headlines in 2009 when it introduced anti-homosexuality legislation that included a death sentence for gay sex.
The country’s legislature passed legislation in 2014, but replaced the death penalty clause with a proposal for life imprisonment. This law was eventually struck down.
The new law has broad public support in the highly conservative and religious East African nation, where anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment runs deep.
But it has drawn fierce criticism from civil society groups and LGBTQ+ activists. “It’s another way of using the law to punish people who do no harm other than for who they are,” Pan-African ILGA tweeted.
“As a community, partners and allies, we will do everything we can to ensure that the constitutional rights afforded to the LGBTI community are upheld and the legal provisions available to us will be reviewed in any case if the President approves this bill.” and it becomes law,” activist Richard Lusimbo told CNN.
Pepe Onziema, a transgender LGBTQ rights activist and program director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), an LGBTQ rights NGO whose operations were shut down by authorities last year, told CNN that members of the community now live in fear.
“We’re pretty naggingly afraid of the threats of the law. And now that it’s actually passed in Parliament, the (LGBTQ) community is quite scared,” Onziema said. “There’s a large community of LGBTQ people in the country, so we can’t just give up. We will find other ways of working. We may not be as visible as we were before because there are attacks online as well.”
African Rainbow Family, a UK-based charity that supports LGBTQ+ Africans seeking refuge in the UK, described the bill as “attacking” and “persecuting” Uganda’s LGBTQ community.
“African Rainbow Family fully condemns the passage of Uganda’s ‘Anti-Gay Law 2023’. The law represents a violation of the basic human rights of LGBTIQ people in Uganda.
“African Rainbow Family once again sees this law as an attack and additional persecution of the Ugandan LGBTIQ community by state and non-state agents,” she told CNN.
Feminist writer and human rights activist Rosebell Kagumire told CNN that the new legislation could have consequences other than human rights violations.
“The attempt to rob LGBTQIA people of all their humanity extends to denying them housing, education and health care. In a country where AIDS is still an epidemic and men who have sex with men and trans women (and) sex workers still face a higher incidence, this law will criminalize healthcare and nix the entire fight to end AIDS do,” said Kagumire.
For human rights lawyer Sarah Kihika Kasande: “If President Museveni approves the law, it will authorize state-sanctioned attacks and prosecutions against LGBTQ people.”
Seeking refuge elsewhere could be the “last resort” for some members of Uganda’s LGBTQ community, Onziema says.
“Asylum is something of a last resort for us, but for people who are really at risk and feel they can no longer live here, as a leader in this community, I would definitely support them to seek refuge elsewhere .
“But it’s difficult to apply for asylum, especially as a black queer person. Your chances are further reduced. But I think the few people who see that as an option are hoping that the countries they choose to seek refuge will actually accept them and not marginalize them any further,” he told CNN.