Pornography traffickers face jail
Thursday, 29th January, 2009
Josephine Maseruka
and Susan Ninsiima
INDIVIDUALS peddling pornography risk being sentenced to Prison for 10 years or to pay a fine of sh10m, once the Anti Pornography Bill 2009 is passed.
Ethics and Integrity minister Dr. James Nsaba Buturo said the Bill was ready and would soon be tabled in Parliament.
If the offender is a corporate body or a business, the directors or proprietors or both, will be liable to a fine not exceeding sh100m or imprisonment not exceeding 10 years or both.
“Pornography is a big business for both promoters and advocates of immorality, who do not care about the quality of human relationships in the family and nationally,” Buturo yesterday told journalists at the Media Centre.
He also said: “Pornography is a poison to the mind. It fuels sexual crimes like rape and defilement. It destroys marriages and turns values upside down. Some of the values have stood the test of time.”
Buturo said responsible Ugandans had expressed concern, which prompted the Cabinet to direct the ethics and integrity ministry and the Attorney General’s office to draft the Bill.
He said the Bill seeks to repeal and replace sections 166 of the penal Code Act with a new and comprehensive legislation, which is capable of controlling and suppressing obscene material.
Some sections of the Bill target to punish producers and participants in the production, traffickers, publishers or broadcasters of pornography. It also empowers the courts of law to order the forfeiture and destruction of all materials and objects used to commit the offence.
The Bill empowers the court to issue a search warrant for any premises or persons, seize the materials and arrest the culprits.
It states that once culprits are convicted, they have no appeal option.
Buturo said the Bill caters for Internet service providers, who permit the downloading or uploading of pornography.
The minister said: “When it comes to cabinet, I will insist on keeping the prison term in the Bill, rather than the cash fine, because the dealers can easily pay.”
The minister was challenged to explain why the ebimansulo (strip dances) were still being performed with the knowledge of law enforcement agencies.
Buturo said it was regrettable that enforcement officers were sympathisers of immoral acts.
He said a joint committee of officials from the ministries of gender, ethics and integrity, health and internal affairs would discuss the link between traditional healers and human sacrifice.
6 comments:
These people would be hyseterically funny in their stupidity if their actions weren´t so dangerous to humanity...meanwhile the civil wars, the raping, the warriors murder and this dipper wants to jail people (who he can´t control their fantansies anyway)...perhaps he ought invent a special brain x-ray so he knows when Ugandans are thinking those IMPORTED tainted sexual thoughts?
I guess he has to do something to appear as if he´s doing his job...real and moral HUMAN RIGHTS issues are ¨thrown out the window¨ as you say.
Same with Orombi...he´s making a cruscade to justify his HOLY anti-LGBT intrusions in The United States...problem was, The California Supreme Court threw he and his fellow puritan pillagers OUT! Not to worry, he´ll justify his spiritual negligence and blame it on FOREIGNERS!
have you ever thought that porn is a route for so much immorality cropping into society these days and we have become so complacent and allowed its reign and thats why people are on a sexual rampage like no toher? ever thought about hjow kids today watch music videos from a young age and are actuall doing soft porn and when they are 5 they are doing things you would not have done 10 yrs ago, have you ever thought how this affects the futre generation, aids? etcs
have you ever thought you could have your mind seered already and dont see whats wrong and that that is an attitude by so many people which aint a love attitude but a selfish attitute of i'if it dont hurt nobody its kool?' do yuo ever think that what comes around goes around coz we are linked to each other by the mere fact of being human beings? and we, in one way or other affect each other... so profoundly? think about it.... let youer heart be soft to the evils in this worlld and how it stopping begins with us.
lulu, I understand what you're saying. But it would be far less destructive if you, and the likes of Butero would try to come at it from a positive angle, and not a negative one.
When you go "anti" this and "anti" that, instead of "for" this and "for" that, you end up bitter, and permanently angry at the world around you. It's not a good place to be.
Dear Lulu,
I used to think like you do, but now I realize that it is too simplistic. I laugh and say Buturo is after my porn cache, you see a good guy doing what he should do.
A philosophical question. What is good? What is evil?
Buturo definitely believes that he is on a crusade against evil. The fact that I am gay makes me take another look at his crusade. Call it another perspective. Because he thinks me part of that evil, he would like me to get out of the country. He would like me to be in prison. He would like me to be silent. Just because he defines me gay. All these things he has said, as recently as last year.
Yet I am a Ugandan. Don’t my rights matter? Doesn’t my right to country, and clan, and life beat his holy moral desires?
You can also look at it this way. I am very open about sex and sexuality. A long journey that mine has been. Unlike a lot of other Ugandans, I will admit that I love looking at porn. And of course I have a stash of it. Fact.
Buturo wants to get the right to search my house for porn. In that bill. What the hell, dont I have a right to privacy? Must what I do in my house be subject to Nsaba-Buturo's big brother eye?
I know that the ‘evils’ which you are attributing to porn are simply not true. But, many fellow Ugandans still will support Buturo on that. He is wrong, but you will support him because you feel you have to support his moral crusade. Because it is apparently a moral crusade. And, because many other Ugandans will not speak up in defence of porn. I have even heard some people blaming porn for my homosexuality. That is crazy. But how many Ugandans will stand up and tell Buturo that it is untrue?
Buturo is ‘saved’. I am not ‘saved’. One of the most irritating things about savedees is the assumption that they have the right to define other peoples behaviour. The mini skirts which he wants banned. Homosexuals who he wants outlawed and exiled. All those are examples of that. Question is, if you have a right to religion, why do you assume that I must follow your rules? Frankly speaking, it reminds me of Jesus’ quarrel with the Pharisees. They made the religion tasteless with all their do’s and don’t’s. Its okay, if I am of your religion. It irks me, if you want me to do as you do by choice. It is your choice. Kindly allow me my choice too.
So, I resent Buturo’s definition of the ‘evil’ of porn. I know that porn is not the cause of all the world’s evils as Buturo lists them. And I also do not like the fact that someone wants to put his moral definitions on me. Values are not universal. That is a fact. And, even if Buturo’s values are those of the apparent 'moral' majority in Uganda, they still are not my values. Why do you think you have to determine whether or not I look at porn? If your concern is the children, keep them away from the porn. If you can.
I could write an essay on all this. Bottom line, I respect Buturo's right to determine what he as a person believes and how he acts. I am not happy when he sits on some pharisical high chair and starts telling me how I should behave. Especially when I have very good reason to know that he is wrong. Afterall, I am gay. A homosexual. And he sincerely believes my being a homosexual is evil incarnate.
gug
Brother, for how long will you cry victim?
Sure, Buturo is an idiot, but the 'pornographic bill' applies to homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.
*This blog has gone too long without a happy post. I'll be back when there is one.
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