The Constitutional Court of Uganda rejects a lawsuit against the internationally heavily criticized anti-LGBTQ law. <\/p>\n
The court in Kampala explains that the \u201cAnti-Homosexuality Law 2023\u201d will neither be repealed nor suspended. According to the law, \u201cparticipation in homosexual acts\u201d carries a life sentence and \u201csevere homosexuality\u201d carries a death penalty. The law was passed in May. Human rights activists, legal scholars and members of parliament from the ruling party filed a lawsuit against it.<\/p>\n
It provides for life imprisonment up to the death penalty: a law in Uganda that criminalizes “homosexual acts.” Human rights activists had sued against it – unsuccessfully. The Constitutional Court rejected their application.<\/p>\n
The constitutional court in the landlocked East African state of Uganda has dismissed a lawsuit against the anti-LGBTQ law, which has been loudly criticized internationally. The court in Kampala said that the rules adopted last May will neither be repealed nor suspended.<\/p>\n
According to the law, “engaging in homosexual acts” is a crime punishable by life imprisonment. \u201cSevere homosexuality\u201d can therefore even be punished with the death penalty, although this has not been carried out in Uganda for years.<\/p>\n
Human rights activists, legal scholars and two members of parliament from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party sued the law. The plaintiffs see the law as a violation of human rights as well as the right to protection from discrimination and the right to privacy guaranteed by Uganda’s constitution.<\/p>\n
In May 2023, Uganda passed one of the harshest laws against homosexual people – despite protests abroad. The presiding judge said that the law was essentially compatible with fundamental rights. The ruling can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker T\u00fcrk had already sharply criticized the law and called on the country’s president not to sign it.<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk described the law as one of the \u201cworst of its kind in the world.\u201d It could be a license for the \u201csystematic violation\u201d of almost all human rights.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands responded at that time by freezing payments. The USA and Germany announced that they would examine collaborations.<\/p>\n
In May 2023, the Foreign Office demanded that the law be withdrawn because it violated international obligations. The World Bank stopped issuing new loans to Uganda.<\/p>\n
Several attempts had been made for the law. The effects were already felt before it was signed, a Ugandan activist said last year. <\/p>\n
Hospitals, for example, turned away homosexuals because the facilities feared they would be harassed by the government. A well-known activist was murdered years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Death penalty and imprisonment for homosexuals: Lawsuit against Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ law fails<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":79856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[40904,11075],"class_list":["post-79855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-death-penalty","tag-uganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79855"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79859,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79855\/revisions\/79859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}