Protesters demand the EU stop sending money to Uganda because of the “Kill the Gays” law

Activists gathered in Washington, D.C., Thursday to demand European Union sanctions on Uganda over its Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The law “is driving already marginalized people away from needed services and codifies state-sponsored discrimination and violence against real or perceived LBGTQ people in all areas of life,” the Convening for Equality (CFE) coalition wrote in a letter to EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen ahead of the demonstration. “The European Union should immediately announce a comprehensive review of all of its funding to Uganda, and should pause or reprogram any funds that go via government entities. Any essential humanitarian support should be rerouted to non-government organizations who are committed to providing services to and employing LGBTIQ people.”

Related:

White House condemns Uganda’s Constitutional Court for upholding “kill the gays” law

The administration has already been sanctioning Uganda because of the law.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act, signed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last May, has been called one of the most extreme examples of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the world. It made what is described in the law as “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by the death penalty, imposed a life sentence for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities,” and even banned identifying as LGBTQ+.

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Earlier this month, Uganda’s Constitutional Court struck down parts of the law — including a provision that made it a crime to fail to report homosexual acts to authorities — but upheld its draconian punishments for LGBTQ+ people. Ugandan LGBTQ+ activists have appealed the ruling, the Washington Blade reported earlier this week.

The law has drawn international condemnation. Following its enactment last May, President Joe Biden called for the law to be repealed, and in January the U.S. removed Uganda from the list of nations eligible to benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows eligible sub-Saharan African nations to export over 1,800 products to the U.S. duty-free. Last August, the World Bank Group suspended new loans to the East African nation, saying that the law contradicts the group’s values.  

While the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said in a statement last May that the law “is contrary to international human rights law and to Uganda’s obligations under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights,” in September Urpilainen said that the EU would not suspend aid to the country. Urpilainen wrote in a letter to the European Parliament that suspending Ugandan aid would deprive the country’s most vulnerable populations of vital support and “would also create gaps which may be further filled by other players who do not share EU values,” Reuters reported at the time.

That decision drew swift criticism from Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights organizations, including the CFE, which organized Thursday’s protest in front of the European Union Delegation to the U.S. in Washington along with Health GAP and Global Black Gay Men Connect.

In its letter to Urpilainen, the CFE criticized her announcement last month of more than €200 million in aid to Uganda “with no mention of how Uganda or affiliated private sector institutions will be held accountable for ensuring non-discrimination and protection of human rights when spending this new EU funding.”

“We’re here today because it’s our obligation as human rights activists from around the world to call out complicity and inaction when lives are on the line,” one activist said to the crowd of over a dozen protesters Thursday. “The EU, in the face of this hate, is staying inactive. It’s spouting words and hot air when what we need is action. So today we’re demanding, on behalf of human rights defenders from Uganda and around the world, that the EU stop its complicity with Museveni’s regime of hate and authoritarianism and anti-democracy, and stand up and stop spouting money into the coffers of this regime without condition.”

“We want to make our message loud and clear in Washington, D.C., at the EU office, that we are disappointed in you as an organization,” Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya said. “The LGBTQ rights in Uganda are under attack on your watch. We cannot allow human rights to be abused today, in the 21st century, on your watch.”

Previously, CFE leader Frank Mugisha agreed with the EU’s Urpilainen that total disengagement with Uganda would be a mistake, according to Reuters, but called on the EU to “fine-tune” its aid to the country “in ways that ensure that those who spout hatred and catalyze violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ people — including Ugandan government officials — won’t benefit from EU taxpayers’ money.”