UGANDA/FILE: President Yoweri Museveni and Togo's Faure Gnassingbe react to Britain's threat to cut aid to countries that prosecute homosexuals

Record ID: 277603

  • Title: UGANDA/FILE: President Yoweri Museveni and Togo's Faure Gnassingbe react to Britain's threat to cut aid to countries that prosecute homosexuals
  • Date: 11th November 2011
  • Summary: CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS PROTESTING CORRECTIVE RAPE IN SOUTH AFRICA SIGN READING "KILL THE UGANDA HATE BILL"
  • Embargoed: 26th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Uganda, Uganda
  • Country: Uganda
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5NOBJ0IVGZIVUU534ND6DHCZL
  • Story Text: Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni and Togo's Faure Gnassingbe have lashed out at Britain's David Cameron's threat to cut aid to countries that deny gay rights.
    The presidents were speaking at a news conference in Uganda's capital Kampala where Gnassingbe is winding up a four-day state visit to the east African nation.
    Ghana and Tanzania have also said they would never legalise homosexuality.
    "If Cameron is talking about not persecuting homosexuals or harming them in any way, then I think he wasted his words. I think it is not necessary to talk to us about that because we know what we are doing but if he is talking about promoting homosexuality, I think he will face very serious opposition," said Museveni at the news conference.
    A man who confessed to murdering a Ugandan gay activist by beating him with a hammer was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the crime, a local newspaper reported on Friday (November 11).
    David Kato, one of the country's most prominent gay campaigners, was beaten to death with a hammer at his home and died on the way to hospital.
    The case provoked worldwide condemnation and drew attention to gay rights issues in Uganda. But police said Nsubuga was a "thief" known to Kato and the murder was not related to the victim's gay rights campaign.
    Homosexuality is taboo in many African nations. It is illegal in 37 countries on the continent, including Uganda, and activists say few Africans are openly gay, fearing imprisonment, violence and loss of jobs.
    "As my brother president Museveni was saying, what we need to avoid is discrimination and stigmatization, but we can neither promote homosexuality nor can we make it a national debate because it is not our priority, it is not our concern, if it is the concern of the British or Mr. Cameron, that is their problem," said Gnassignbe in Kampala.
    While homosexuality is illegal in most of Africa's 53 nations, South Africa in 2006 passed laws recognizing same-sex marriage. But cases of people believed to be gay being raped to "correct" what some see as abnormal sexual orientation are common in the country.
    Uganda drew international censure when an anti-gay bill proposing the death penalty for homosexuals who are "repeat offenders" was presented to parliament in October 2009.
    Pressure from gay rights activists and Western governments later forced parliament to shelve the bill.
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