Bishop Eria Paul Luzinda

In light of last week’s protests and arrests, Ugandan Mukono Bishop, Eria Paul Luzinda, is urging his goverment to resist legalizing gay activities. Bishop Luzinda made the remarks last Wednesday while addressing students of Centenary Community College in Kayunga Sub-county, according to All Africa.

The College was set up by Mukono Diocese to equip students with vocational and technical skills. Gay activists last Wednesday stormed an HIV/AIDS meeting attended by President Museveni in Kampala asking the government to consider them in the planning and prevention of HIV/Aids but were arrested by the police. “I have been hearing that gays are demanding that the government should legalise their activities. This is absurd because God created a man and woman so that they can produce and fill this world,” Bishop Luzinda said.

“The government should not be tempted to legalise this backward culture which is bound to destroy this country.” “Not all that comes from Europe is superior and must be taken up by us,” Bishop Luzinda said. The bishop also urged parents to value technical and vocational education as one way of reducing unemployment levels in the country. He advised students to fully utilise their time at school if they are to have a bright and successful future. Bishop Luzinda commended the administration for renovating the school structures which he said had been neglected by the past administration.

Source

Amnesty International released a statement today condemning the June 4, 2008 arrests of three LGBT human rights defenders in Uganda. The press release and an accompanying report outlined their organisation’s call for HIV prevention programmes for the LGBT community in Uganda. ”Amnesty International condemns the arbitrary arrest of these individuals, and is concerned that they may face harassment and degrading treatment in custody as such practices is common against LGBT people in Ugandan police stations.”

Amnesty International said that “the three activists are prisoners of conscience, detained for their peaceful activism for the rights of LGBT people to treatment and prevention measures for HIV/AIDS, and should be released immediately and unconditionally.”

These arbitrary arrests follow the recent arbitrary detention and mistreatment while in custody of two transgender individuals in Kampala. On 20 May 2008, the two were dancing at Capital Pub in Kampala, Uganda, when they were detained by club bouncers, harassed and beaten while being asked whether they were men or women, and “accused” of being homosexuals. The club management of Capital Pub called the police, who detained both individuals for four days at Kabalagala Police station. During their detention, both were repeatedly beaten by police officers, and one was kissed, fondled and forcefully propositioned for sex by other detainees, and stripped and had their genitals groped by a police officer. One of the two was denied medical treatment for diabetes, and allowed only one meal a day. After their release on bond, both individuals were charged with public nuisance, and are currently awaiting trial.

photo source

Ugandan Police arrested a group of gay activists demanding the right to HIV/AIDS treatment at an international AIDS conference in Kampala on Wednesday, according to Monsters and Critics.

Hundreds of activists disrupted the morning plenary session of the conference, calling for rights, recognition and access to services and funds extended to groups involved in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. 

‘We came to demonstrate because there is a need to include gay Ugandans in HIV programmes,’ the group’s leader, Julian Onziema, 28, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa shortly before he was arrested.

The number of Ugandan homosexuals is not known, but membership of gay groups is believed to be increasing as activists step up their attempts to secure gay rights. Uganda does not recognize gay rights and people found guilty of homosexual acts can be sentenced to life imprisonment. However, nobody has ever been convicted of the crime.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh

The Gambian President Yahya Jammeh wasn’t kidding about his crack down on queer people. According to the International Herald Tribune, authorities in Gambia have arrested two Spanish men for allegedly making “homosexual proposals” to taxi drivers, police said Monday.

The arrests come less than three weeks after Gambia’s president told homosexuals to leave the West African country or face beheadings.

The Spanish nationals were taken into custody Friday after the taxi drivers reported being solicited by them, police spokesman Sulayman Secka said. He declined to give further details on the incident or say when the men might be released.

Homosexual sex is illegal in Gambia, where those convicted of consensual homosexual acts face jail terms of up to 14 years. In his speech last month, President Yahya Jammeh also threatened to close down hotels that rent rooms to gays.

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In a strongly worded letter to Gambian President Yahyeh Jammeh, Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) condemned statements by the West African leader ordering homosexuals out of the country, threatening hotel owners who rented rooms to gay and lesbian people, and threatening summary executions. Ettelbrick also called for the repeal of Gambia’s antiquated sodomy law, inherited from its days as British colony.

Click here to read the letter to President Yahya Jammeh (you have to scroll down a bit to read it).

(Gambian President Yahya Jammeh)

Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh, issued a decree last week, demanding  gay men and lesbians leave the country within 24 hours or face “serious consequences.” 

In a victory speech, President Jammeh warned homosexuals, drug dealers, thieves and other criminals, to leave Gambia or face serious consequences if caught. The President equally warned all those who harbour such individuals to kick them out of their compounds, noting that a mass patrol will be conducted on the instructions of the IGP and the director of the Gambia Immigration Department to weed bad elements in society.

“Any hotel, lodge or motel that lodges this kind of individuals will be closed down, because this act is unlawful.” he said. ”We are in a Muslim dominated country and I will not and shall never accept such individuals in this country.”

Gambia, a mostly Muslim country of 1.7 million people, punishes homosexual acts, even in private, with up to seven years in prison. A former British colony, the country has been ruled by President Jammeh since a bloodless coup in 1994.

Last year Jammeh horrified scientists by announcing that he had developed a “miracle cure” for HIV/AIDS.

Hundreds of Gambians lined up to be “cured” by President Jammeh, who treats his patients by rubbing a mysterious herbal paste into their ribcages and then instructing them to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas. The therapy is administered repeatedly over several weeks. According to Mr Jammeh, AIDS sufferers are cured within three to thirty days. (Ya. Whatever.)

Source: PinkNews

It seems being raped, tortured, and beaten in a Ugandan prison, is not enough for the UK to grant asylum.

Asylum seeker and Ugandan, Prossy Kakooza, 26, was with her girlfriend of 5 years, when her brother discovered her and called the police. In jail, she was raped, branded with hot meat skewers, and beaten by drunken police officers. 

A friend bribed the police, and helped her escape her home country, and she fled to the UK. On arriving in the UK, doctors were shocked by her injuries and called the police. 

Despite the evidence of attacks on her, the British Home Office has refused her claim of asylum. She has now appealed the decision, which is her last solution. If she is turned down Kakooza said she would likely be killed if she is returned to Uganda.

In the UK, Kakooza has been receiving counseling from a rape crisis centre. She says, ”I have nightmares every night and I don’t think I will ever get over what happened to me.”

“I really want stay in this country and work,” she said. “I have a degree in English Literature and I would love to be able to teach.”

Kakooza also said that she often thinks of her girlfriend who remains in prison.

“I was lucky I got out. I can’t bear to think of what is happening to her there.”

Two years ago, a similar story occurred. Elizabeth Muhwezi sought asylum in the UK, but the judge ruled that she should be sent back to Africa because “lesbians are not homosexuals” and that only gay males in Uganda face persecution. No information is available on the Internet describing Muhwezi’s fate.

From 365Gay.com:

Anti-gay attacks are commonplace in Uganda but have increased since last August when Ugandan LGBT rights groups for the first time held a public news conference to demand basic civil rights. Many of the participants wore disguises out of fear of government reprisals.

A week later supporters of a coalition of Christian and Muslim religious groups filled a downtown stadium demanding mass arrests of gays.

Last year the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said that it had uncovered evidence that the Bush administration has funded groups in Uganda that actively promote violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men. Among those receiving money, according to US government records, is Uganda Muslim Tabliqh, and the Makerere University Community Church.

Muslim Tabliqh youth announced a plan last year to form an ‘Anti-Gay Squad’ to fight homosexuality in Uganda. 

Sheikh Multah Bukenya, a senior cleric in the Tabliqh Organization, was quoted during prayers at Noor Mosque in Kampala as saying that his followers are “ready to act swiftly and form this squad that will wipe out all abnormal practices like homosexuality in our society.”

The country’s leading Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ramathan Shaban Mubajje, has proposed to President Yoweri Museveni that gays be rounded up and marooned on an island in Lake Victoria until they die.

PinkNews reports that a prominent female football player, Midfielder Eudy Simelane, 31, was gang-raped and murdered in South Africa last week. According to activist, she was the victim of homophobic violence.

“We believe that it is a homophobic hate crime simply by the fact that the victim in this case was a well known lesbian,” Carrie Shelver of People Opposed to Women Abuse told the South African Broadcasting Company. was buried earlier this week.

Ms Simelane was returning home from a night out with friends in Kwatema, near Johannesburg, when she was reportedly targeted by a gang of youths. Her body, which showed signs of repeated stabbings and rape, was found on open ground nearby.

The five young men  (K. Magabhula, J. Mahlangu, T. Mvuba, T. Pitja and T. Phithi) appeared in court yesterday, but had nothing to say to the State Prosecutor’s motion for bail to be denied, following questions by the Magistrate.

The girlfriend of the late Banyana Banyana player Eudy Simelane wishes she was raped and killed like her partner. ”I feel the pain she felt when they raped and stabbed her to death. It’s better if they come to rape and kill me like they did with her,” Sibongile Pearl Vilakazi said on Monday as members of the gay and lesbian community battled to comfort her. 

This is not the first time lesbians have been attacked and murdered in the African country. On July 7, 2007, two lesbian women, 34 year old Sizakele Sigasa and 23 year old Salome Masooa, were raped, tortured and killed in Meadowlands, Soweto. And on February 4, 2006, lesbian Zoliswa Nonkonyane was murdered by a mob of 20 men.

Neither of these cases have been solved.

Madonna’a documentary, ‘I Am Because We Are’ premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival this past Thursday, and has three more screenings before the Festival ends. THe film, which was written, produced and narrated by Madonna, looks at the plight of children in Malawi, as a result of the AIDS crisis. The filming, or what took place during it, is not without its critics.

During the filming, Madonna found David, a young Malawian boy Madonna and her film director husband, Guy Ritchie, are adopting. He has lived with the couple in London since shortly after the adoption process began about 18 months ago. Great controversy has surrounded the adoption, with claims that Madonna got preferential treatment. She is likely to complete adoption May 15, 2008.

Among those interviewed in the documentary are, former US president Bill Clinton, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu, Paul Farmer of the Harvard Medical School, and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and special United Nations adviser.

Watch her interview at the Festival. 

You can watch the trailer below, but we must warn you, the trailer is over 5 minutes long.

Source: Mail & Guardian