“Who would want to live in a place where everyone hates you?” Frank Mugisha, the chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, recently asked me. “Who wants to live in a place where you cannot easily do your shopping? Where you think, Am I going to survive today? Am I going to get arrested today? Or beaten? Who wants to live in a place where your friends have alienated you? Who wants to live such a life?”
But in spite of the police harassment, the attacks from local media (he was identified in a Ugandan tabloid as a “Top Homo”), the death threats on his mobile phone, and the attempted blackmail, Mugisha and other activists are determined to stay and work for change in a country where the already criminalized gay population is being threatened.
If you’ve watched the news lately, you know why: The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has received significant attention in international press, where it is often called the “kill the gays” bill. Not only do “serial offenders” face execution, those who fail to report gays and lesbians to the police face incarceration.
Mugisha’s resolve is astounding, given one simple fact: “I could be the first person to be sentenced to life in prison if this law is passed.” He added calmly, “Uganda has some of the worst prisons in the world.”
Another person who, while frightened of what the law will do to the country, refuses to be intimidated we’ll call John (not his real name), a physician who also works for an international HIV/AIDS organization. “If the bill passes,” he said, “I will be supposed to do things that I, frankly, will not do. Damn the bill! I will be supposed to report any person who comes to me and tells me about homosexual contact within 24 hours on pain of a fine and three years in prison myself.”
John is equally indignant with the bill’s potentially devastating effects on HIV prevention and services.
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