Uganda

OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada -- A Canadian foreign affairs official acknowledged Friday that there are ongoing efforts to fund grassroots Ugandan LGBTQ advocacy organizations who are battling efforts by the Ugandan Parliament to pass that country’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill. [ Read more → ]

David Kato advocated for the freedom of LGBTI Ugandans and for their right to their natural born sexual orientation in a heightened climate of hostility and homophobia ... Today on this second anniversary of the death of Kato, his friends, comrades, human rights defenders, and LGBTI people around the world are expressing their love, comforting each other and extolling the virtues of this great hero, with comments, memories and prayer for the peace of his dearly departed soul. [ Read more → ]

A crowd of U.S. LGBT activists, holding signs outside the Hampden Federal Courthouse in Massachusetts, braved the early morning cold to support Uganda’s LGBTI community in the first case of its type on U.S. soil, where opening arguments commenced today in a motion for dismissal by anti-gay pastor Scott Lively. [ Read more → ]

When Scott Lively, the founder of Christian Evangelical group Abiding Truth Ministries journeyed to Uganda to incite the persecution of gays, he had no idea that his mission would lead to a lawsuit by Ugandans, on U.S. soil, charging that he had committed crimes against humanity. [ Read more → ]

In a heightened ramp up of persecution of gay Ugandans, a second man has been arrested while visiting a co-worker who had been taken into custody on Monday and charged with crimes relating to homosexuality. [ Read more → ]

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Police in Uganda on Monday arrested and LGBT youth counselor under laws which prohibit unnatural carnal acts — a definition which is widely understood to include homosexuality and "recruiting youth into homosexuality." [ Read more → ]

Business will resume as normal in Uganda in February, as it has at the start of every parliamentary session since the "Kill the Gays" bill was proposed in 2009, with the possibility of the bill still existing on the agenda. We have been fighting this same bill for three years now, and it continues to come back. To claim that we “killed” the bill isn’t really honest with ourselves and with others that we want to get involved in protecting LGBT Ugandan people. [ Read more → ]

The Ugandan Parliament adjourned for the holidays on Friday, and again avoided taking any action on the controversial "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga had promised would be approved as a "Christmas gift" to the nation. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY -- Uganda Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who last month promised that her country's anti-homosexuality bill would be approved as a "Christmas gift" to the nation, received a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI during a mass attended by at the Vatican on Wednesday. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, expressed support this week for parliamentarians in Uganda who are considering a measure that will impose harsher sanctions on LGBT people, as well as sentencing guidelines that could mean capital punishment for engaging in homosexual acts. [ Read more → ]

U.S. officials offered a different account about the status of a draconian anti-gay bill in Uganda on Tuesday, saying the legislation had yet to move out of committee and disputing earlier media reports and State Department comments by saying the panel is incapable of removing the infamous death penalty provision from the legislation. [ Read more → ]

The top U.S. diplomat in Africa met over the weekend with leaders in Uganda to express concerns about an anti-gay bill pending before the country’s parliament that could be headed for a vote as soon as this week, according to the State Department. [ Read more → ]

A committee in the Uganda Parliament has advanced a proposed anti-homosexuality bill, but not before dropping a controversial death penalty clause from its original version that had earned the measure the nickname the "Kill the Gays" bill. [ Read more → ]

KAMPALA — Uganda’s speaker of parliament has promised that the controversial anti-homosexuality bill, dubbed the "Kill the Gays Bill," will pass by the end of the year, calling it a "Christmas gift" to the nation. [ Read more → ]

ENTEBBE, Uganda -- The Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament has said that she would stand firm against homosexuality, and that she will push for that country's notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill to be passed as soon as possible by Parliament. [ Read more → ]

KAMPALA, Uganda -- The British manager of a bar and cultural center in the Ugandan capital city was arrested and remains in police custody after being denied bail for staging a play last week, whose main character is a gay businessman who is killed by his own employees. [ Read more → ]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday honored a group of Ugandan human rights activists at a ceremony in the country’s capital. [ Read more → ]

KAMPALA, Uganda -- A Ugandan judge this week said that the country's security and interior ministries should “infiltrate” gay rights groups to ascertain if children are being “recruited into homosexuality.” [ Read more → ]

Police in Kampala, Uganda on Monday raided a gay rights meeting and arrested several LGBT activists gathered at the Essela Hotel in Najjeera, a Kampala suburb, accusing the participants of “propagating gay issues in Uganda.” [ Read more → ]

On April 20, Invisible Children will hold a worldwide rally to draw attention to murderous Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) founder Joseph Kony. The event is called “Cover the Night,” but when one looks a bit closer at the shady right wing extremists this group cavorts with, a more appropriate name might be “Invisible Agenda: Covering Up The Theocratic Nightmare.” [ Read more → ]