By Abdi Latif Dahir

NAIROBI, Kenya — Lawmakers in Uganda have passed a sweeping anti-gay law that can bring punishments as severe as the death penalty — the culmination of a long-running campaign to criminalize homosexuality and target LGBTQ people in the conservative nation in East Africa.

The law, which was passed late Tuesday (21) night after more than seven hours of discussion and amendments, calls for a life sentence for anyone engaging in gay sex. Even trying to have same-sex relations would be met with a seven-year prison term.

The death penalty would be applied to people convicted of “aggravated homosexuality”,  a sweeping term defined in the law as homosexual acts committed by anyone infected with HIV or involving children, disabled people or anyone drugged against their will. Most of these acts are already crimes regardless of gender under the Ugandan penal code, but the death penalty has been added to the bill to target cases in which the perpetrator and victim are of the same sex.

The parliamentary vote caps a struggle over gay rights in Uganda that has drawn international attention for nearly 15 years. It comes as anti-gay policies and discrimination have been on the rise in several African nations, including Kenya, Ghana and Zambia.

The legislation in Uganda, called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, also imposes a penalty of up to 1 billion Ugandan shillings (about $264,000) on any entity convicted of promoting homosexuality. People younger than 18 who are convicted of engaging in homosexuality face up to three years in prison, along with a period of “rehabilitation”.

“This house will continue to pass laws that recognize, protect and safeguard the sovereignty, morals and cultures of this country,” Anita Annet Among, speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, said after legislators finished voting.

The bill will now go to President Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s leader for nearly four decades, who has been an outspoken driver of anti-gay measures. He has in the past accused gay people of undermining the stability of Uganda and in recent weeks called them “deviants”.

Museveni is also a close Western ally whose nation receives almost $1 billion a year in development aid from the United States. He has pressed for anti-gay measures despite exhortations by Western nations to respect the rights of LGBTQ citizens and in defiance of threats to cut aid.

On Wednesday (22), Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the Ugandan government “to strongly reconsider the implementation of this legislation,” saying that it would undermine the rights of Ugandans and “could reverse gains” in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

The bill’s passing was sharply criticized by rights groups and by a few lawmakers in Uganda who said that it infringed on the freedoms of Ugandans and further eroded the rights of gay people.

Volker Türk, the United Nations human rights chief, called the anti-gay law “probably among the worst of its kind in the world” and said that it could “serve to incite people against each other.”

Homosexuality is illegal in at least three dozen African countries, with sentences ranging from fines to life in prison. Around the world, a death penalty sentence for same-sex relations is imposed in only a handful of countries, including Iran and Mauritania, according to a survey by Human Rights Watch.

The bill was introduced in early March by lawmaker Asuman Basalirwa, who has said that homosexuality threatens family values and the safety of Ugandan children. Basalirwa did not respond to an interview request.

But during an appearance at a public forum at Makerere University in the capital, Kampala, on Wednesday, Basalirwa doubled down, saying the law was needed because there was a “public outcry” over a plot to recruit schoolchildren into homosexuality — an allegation that rights advocates have said is baseless.

In Uganda, a country of about 46 million people — about 85% Christian and 15% Muslim — religious leaders have jointly inveighed against homosexuality and what they say is its impact on the sanctity of family and children. Many religious leaders say that homosexuality is a Western import and have held protests and rallies urging legislators to introduce laws that would harshly penalize gay people.

But even as anti-gay sentiment in Uganda has become pervasive, LGBTQ people have become more public, mobilizing to defeat anti-gay legislation in court, holding small Pride parades, representing Uganda in international gay events and creating support groups for parents of gay children.

The new laws, activists say, will aggravate the challenges already facing gay Ugandans.

Authorities have in recent years regularly rounded up people whom they suspect of being gay or lesbian and arrested people at gay-friendly bars on what rights groups say are fabricated drug charges, subjecting some to invasive physical examinations. The authorities have raided and shut down the country’s only gay film festival. And last month, a major Ugandan military officer urged health officials not to treat homosexual people in government health centres.

Last year, authorities also closed down Sexual Minorities Uganda, an organization that supported LGBTQ people in the country.

While the vote happened quickly, the drive to outlaw homosexuality in Uganda has been long-running, drawing encouragement from evangelical Christians in the United States and international outrage from LGBTQ people and human rights advocates.

Evangelical groups faced scrutiny and a backlash for their role, including a lawsuit by a Ugandan rights group in the United States. Since then, US evangelical organizations have operated out of the limelight, allowing local leaders and groups to feed the anti-gay sentiment in Uganda, said Nicholas Opiyo, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist.

“They have been working very meticulously over the last five years in mobilizing a constituency, fanning public sentiments, in spreading misinformation as the basis for this law,” Opiyo said in a telephone interview.

The legislation passed Tuesday was a revised version of a harsh 2014 law signed by Museveni that punished “aggravated homosexuality” with life in prison.

But the Ugandan Constitutional Court nullified the law that same year, saying that it had been passed in Parliament without the necessary quorum.

In contrast, for the vote Tuesday night, lawmakers filled parliamentary chambers. The vote count was 387 in favour and two opposed. But 168 lawmakers were absent.

Opiyo said that he and other rights advocates planned to try to persuade the president not to sign the law. If he signs, they say, they will challenge it in court.

Frank Mugisha, one of few openly gay activists in Uganda, said that he was already receiving calls and text messages from people worried for their lives. Some are thinking about leaving the country.

“Society has been radicalized to hate LGBTQ persons,” Mugisha, who has received regular death threats and blackmail in the past, said in a phone interview from Kampala. “The coming days will be very hard.”

-New York Times