A Uganda court overturned a controversial penalty law for gays in that country. This law called for lifelong prison terms for gays and had caused boycotts also for the economically important travel and tourism industry.
US president Barak Obama was had spoken out and so did top executives from the travel and tourism industry, including Virgin Airlines chief Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson. eTN publisher Juergen T Steinmetz had a frank discussion with Uganda’s tourism Board CEO Stephen Asiimwe, where he guaranteed the safety of gay tourists to his country and to went even a step further and welcomed gay travelers to enjoy the beauty of Uganda as a tourism destination. Click here to read.
Yesterday, dancing and waving rainbow-colored flags, Ugandan activists held their first gay pride rally Saturday since the overturning of this tough anti-homosexuality law, which authorities have appealed.
“It is a happy day for all of us, getting together,” Ntebi said, noting that police had granted permission for the invitation-only “Uganda Pride” rally.
The overturned law, condemned as “abominable” by rights groups but popular among many Ugandans, called for proven homosexuals to be jailed for life.
The constitutional court threw it out on a technicality on August 1, six months after it took effect, and the government swiftly filed an appeal, while lawmakers have signed a petition for a new vote on the bill.
Homosexuality remains illegal in Uganda, punishable by a jail sentence. But it is no longer illegal to promote homosexuality, and Ugandans are no longer obliged to denounce gays to the authorities.
Amid music and laughter, activists gathered at botanical gardens on the shores of Lake Victoria, barely a kilometre (half a mile) from the presidential palace at Entebbe, a key town some 35 kilometres from the capital Kampala.
Ugandan Deputy Attorney General Fred Ruhinda said Saturday that state lawyers had lodged an appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court.
“We are unsatisfied with the court ruling,” Ruhinda told news agency AFP. “The law was not intended to victimise gay people, it was for the common good.”
In their surprise ruling last week, judges said it had been passed without the necessary quorum of lawmakers in parliament.
Rights groups said the law triggered a sharp increase in arrests and assaults on members of the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Gay men and women face frequent harassment and threats of violence.
On Saturday, however, activists celebrated openly. One pair of activists waved a rainbow flag with a slogan appealing for people to “join hands” to end the “genocide” of homosexuals.
Some wore masks for fear of being identified — Uganda’s tabloid newspapers have previously printed photographs of prominent activists — while others showed their faces openly and wore colorful fancy dress.
There was little police presence, and no one came to protest the celebration, even if many in the town said they did not approve.
Critics said President Yoweri Museveni signed the law to win domestic support ahead of a presidential election set for 2016, which will be his 30th year in power.
But it lost him friends abroad, with several international donors freezing or redirecting millions of dollars of government aid, saying the country had violated human rights and democratic principles.
US Secretary of State John Kerry likened the law to anti-Semitic legislation in Nazi Germany.
Analysts suggest that Museveni secretly encouraged last week’s court ruling as it provided a way to avoid the appearance of caving in to foreign pressure.
But gay rights activists warn the battle is not over.
Lawmakers signed a petition calling for a new vote on the bill, and to bypass parliamentary rules that require it be formally reintroduced from scratch — a process that could take years.
