GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ bill appears to violate the constitution and urged the country’s judiciary to review it.
The proposal signed into law by President Yoweri Museveni is considered one of the harshest in the world and carries the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”. The government says the constitution has been followed.
“I hope that the judiciary is going to look into it and I can tell you, if they look at human rights law, their own constitution, they will find it in violation of it,” Volker Turk told Reuters on Tuesday, describing the law as “devastating”.
He did not elaborate on which aspect of the constitution had been violated.
Asked about alleged breaches of international law, a spokesperson later added: “a whole range”, saying these included the rights to equality, non-discrimination and to life.
Uganda’s information minister, Chris Baryomunsi, rejected the criticism, telling Reuters: “We followed the constitution, we followed the laid out procedures and the law has been legally passed. For us we do not consider homosexuality as a constitutional right, it is just a sexual deviation which we do not promote as Ugandans and Africans.
“So we disagree with the West on that, homosexual acts are not a human right, they are not. It is abnormal behaviour which is being promoted by societies in the West.”
A Ugandan organisation, Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, and 10 other individuals have filed a complaint against the law at the constitutional court, one of the petitioners, Busingye Kabumba, told Reuters. However, it is not yet clear if the court will take up the case.
Turk also said that “each and every aspect of the law” would also be examined by U.N. human rights experts.
He criticised “so-called religious groups” for stoking the government to pass the legislation. “They want to use the machinery of the state to impose their views which is utterly unacceptable…,” he said.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Alison Williams)
