Friday, May 23, 2008

Human Rights Watch LGBTI Hall of Fame

Sorry, slip of the hand.

Human Rights Watch 'Hall of Shame'. Inductees for this year include;

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda: for denying people privacy and security. In August 2007, after a coalition of LGBT organizations in Uganda launched a campaign called "Let Us Live in Peace," the government showed it had no intention of doing so. Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo publicly called homosexuality "unnatural"; while dismissing claims that police harassed LGBT people, he warned, "We know them, we have details of who they are." The deputy attorney general called for the arrest of gays and lesbians, "because homosexuality is an offense under the laws of Uganda."

LGBT Ugandans have faced official harassment for years. In 2005, authorities raided the home of human rights defender Juliet Victor Mukasa and forced her into hiding. Government officials have censored media discussions of homosexuality and threatened to respond to any advocacy for LGBT rights with prison terms.

A colonial-era sodomy law in Uganda punishes homosexual conduct with life imprisonment. Worldwide, over 85 countries criminalize consensual homosexual conduct. Such laws give governments like Uganda's a pretext to invade people's private lives and deny them an essential right: to live in peace.

From me, no comment. 27th, surely a rant?

gug

6 comments:

Princess said...

I see Kenya left you with a lot of ranting steam...

The 27th Comrade said...

A rant, yes. :o) Reporting for duty, Colonel GUG!

I see how cool it is to blame Museveni for an obligation he only inherited from his society. If he had lived in a different time and place where homosexuals were not stigmatised, then it would be fair to blame him for how the constitution treats homosexuals.

Until then, use a wide brush. Say "Uganda", not anybody in particular.
Most pro-LGBT activists would be knife-wielding homophobes if this had been sixty years ago, say in the USA. You see my point?

There. :o)

gayuganda said...

Ranting steam princess? All this is second hand.

Ha 27th,

You have so justified the (1st or 2nd) comrades homophobia that I am left gasping in awe. So, he has an obligation to have me imprisoned? Revolutionaries have to remember that when they start the revolts, they are rebels until they get the power. Then of course they become conservatives the next day.

The 27th Comrade said...

Yeah, condemning Museveni would require me to condemn you, as well. I face the fact that he is as he is because of his society. Taken alone, he is powerless to affect how he thinks about LGBT. He is, in short, told how to think about LGBT by the society in which he was raised. This self-same society.

So, a better way is to change the society. :o)

gayuganda said...

Oh?

Then I will start the changing of society by condemning the leader's actions. Cost effective way to do it, I must say.

spiralx said...

Museveni may have inherited ideas from his forbears - but then, so do we all. That's no excuse to just go accepting what's been handed down - working out what's right and changing who we are, is what we call "growing up". 'Bout time Ssempa etc. tried it. Christians have an obligation to understand, not to judge.

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