"Uganda's LGBT population is scared," warns Neela Ghoshal. More than a week after the arrest of sixteen activists on Monday, October 21, after being subjected to forced anal testing by Ugandan police, the researcher at Human Rights Watch's LGBT division is alarmed by the resurgence of violence against persons belonging to this minority in this country where homosexuality is punishable by life imprisonment.
If the sixteen men arrested were released the following Thursday, their criminal record remains open for violation of the anti-gay law, said Neela Ghoshal to France 24. These activists are convened in two weeks and their lawyers do not have access to their record, worries HRW.
The NGO also requests that the authors of the anal tests carried out on these people be punished for torture. The UN Committee Against Torture considers the use of forced anal examinations to find "evidence" against people accused of homosexuality as an "act of torture".
"Threatening and beating homosexuals without consequence"
According to the Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), attacks against LGBT people have increased sharply in recent weeks, since statements by Uganda's Minister of Ethics, Simon Lokodo, calling for tougher legislation against homosexuals.
The minister asked in early October for a review of the law to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. For the moment, Ugandan legislation, which has already been toughened in 2014, punishes homosexuality with a life sentence.
"There have been no convictions since 2014. Just arrests here and there, and people have often been released, but sixteen people arrested at once, that's a lot," warns Neela Ghoshal.
According to the police, the sixteen men arrested on Monday were protected from a homophobic mob that surrounded the house in which they were. "Not only has the crowd not been punished, but these men are being prosecuted and tortured, the message to the public is that homosexuals can be threatened and beaten without any consequences. State, "says Neela Ghoshal.
Since August 2019, four killings of LGBT persons have been recorded by the SMUG. The last date of October 5th. It is Brian Wassa, a gay legal assistant, who died of brain haemorrhage due to beatings of unidentified people at his home in Kampala the day before, Amnesty International reports.
Homophobic speech by politicians and evangelists
For Joel Bedos, a member of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia Committee, Ugandan politicians have a responsibility in the upsurge of such violence. "Public opinion is manipulated by politicians who make homophobic outbursts to distract attention in key moments in domestic politics: they attack LGBT people to forget about corruption scandals or sensitive electoral periods, "regrets the activist interviewed by France 24.
In power for over thirty years, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is not left out. He has already repeatedly called homosexuals "sick" and homosexuality a "trend" imported from the West.
Behind the spread of homophobic ideas in Ugandan society and other neighboring countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, Joel Bedos also points to the growing role of American evangelical churches in homophobic discourse.
Since 2010, he says based on the report of a think thank, many activists evangelists and pastors American were sent to the region to broadcast their hate speech against homosexuality. A propaganda that finds the ears of Ugandan politicians.