Freedom House got carried away a bit when it published the following:
Freedom House would like to congratulate Ugandan human rights activist Geoffrey Wokulira Ssebaggala, on being awarded the European Union Human Rights Defender Award for the year 2012. Ssebaggala is one of the founding members of the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) and has been its National Coordinator since 2009. He was honored for his efforts in defending media rights, recording and highlighting restrictions on freedom of expression and access to information, as well as attacks on journalists. Ssebaggala is certainly a most deserved winner, but when Freedom House states: “The European Union established the award to raise awareness about the work of individual human rights defenders (HRDs) around the world. [emphasis added]” it exaggerates quite a bit as is made clear by the EU delegation in Kampala in 2011 when it created the purely national award http://www.deluga.ec.europa.eu/index.php/delegation-activities-in-uganda/political-press-information/press-and-info/news-releases/182-new-new-new-eu-local-hrd-awards-nominations.
The Ugandan Observer reported that the NGO Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) has been the target of break-ins three times in five years at their Nsambya office. According to Livingstone Sewanyana, the executive director of FHRI, such break-ins and robberies don’t only demoralise them, but also have become a threat to the work and confidentiality of their documents in particular. “We don’t feel at ease when such events happen,” he says, “we have lost a lot of data and that’s a big threat to our work.” FHRI is not the only human rights defenders HRD organisation that has been broken into by unknown persons, taking documents and computers. Last December, the office of the Sexual Minorities of Uganda SMUG was broken into, with a lot of equipment stolen. A report assessing the environment in which human rights defenders operated last year, shows that actually, a host of civil society organisations were broken into – a fact seen as a way of crippling their operations in the country. “HRDs, especially within the civil society, who draw attention to human rights violations sometimes have become visible targets susceptible to reprisals,” notes the recently-released Human Rights Defenders in Uganda report: “The Quest for A Better Working Environment, Vol II, 2012” (by the Human Rights Centre Uganda).
These cases are reported to police but according to Sewanyana, there has not been much help.“We have reported all these to police. We have written statements but not a single suspect has been arrested,” Ssewanyana told The Observer. However, Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Ibin Ssenkumbi says they have to follow due procedure. “Police is doing its work and when the investigations are done, the perpetrators will be brought to book,” he says.
Legislative restrictions on “homosexual propaganda” threaten LGBT human rights defenders says the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva which is concerned by the growing number of laws and legislative proposals in a variety of countries that severely threaten the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons and human rights defenders. Ahead of the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council the ICJ today (27 February 2013) submitted a written statement to the UN encouraging the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to follow up on these laws and legislative proposals. Pointing to unlawful restrictions on the freedoms of association and assembly, and the freedom of expression, in several countries (including Uganda, Ukraine and the Russian Federation), the ICJ encourages the Special Rapporteur to call on governments to protect these rights for everyone and to ensure that any restrictions comply with the requirements of legality, of necessity and proportionality and of non-discrimination on all grounds. Moreover, in the case of laws or legislative proposals that fail to comply with these requirements, Governments should take appropriate action.
To download the statement, go to the press announcement:
Homosexuality is already illegal in the country and punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but the so-called Kill the Gays bill, sponsored by MP David Bahati and first introduced in 2009, would penalize “aggravated homosexuality”— consensual same-sex acts committed by “repeat offenders,” anyone who is in a position of power, is HIV-positive, or uses intoxicating agents in the process — with capital punishment. The lesser “offense of homosexuality,” also criminalized in the bill, encompasses anyone who engages in a same-sex sexual relationship, enters into a same-sex marriage, or conspires to commit “aggravated homosexuality”. And almost the most shocking, the bill also calls for three-year prison sentences for friends, family members and neighbors who do not turn in “known homosexuals” to the police!
In January 2013, detained human rights defenders and Twerwaneho Listeners Club (TLC) members Messrs Gerald Kankya, Simon Amanyire and Gilbert Kayondo were released on bail following a decision by the Public Prosecutor that no evidence existed of defamatory statements made by the individuals against Uganda’s First Family. However, the human rights defenders immediately faced new charges and are scheduled to report to the Fort Portal Police Station on 30 January 2013 for interrogation. The charges include inciting violence, disseminating harmful propaganda, while other charges relate to funding and the operation of programmes of the organisation. TLC is a non-governmental organisation based in Fort Portal that carries out human rights advocacy and monitoring work, including through radio programmes, with a view to holding public leaders more accountable.
On the afternoon of 22 January 2013, police conducted searches of the offices of TLC and of the residences of Gerald Kankya and Simon Amanyire. Two computers were confiscated from the TLC offices, while during the search of Gerald Kankya’s residence, police barricaded the gate of the residence with their vehicle, blocking Gerald Kankya’s wife from gaining access to her home. While searching Simon Amanyire’s residence, police confiscated a number of documents.
For more information on this case, see Front Line Defenders’ appeal http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/21363 issued on 23 January 2013, as well as previous urgent appeals and updates documenting instances of harassment of TLC members.
While the debate is again raging in the Ugandan parliament and internationally on adopting an anti-homosexuality bill with extremely severe punishments, Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders as adopted as its HRD of the Month: Brian Nkoyooyo.
‘Fit in’, instead of standing out, is a general security advice for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda. “It is a matter of survival”, says Brian Nkoyooyo, Director of the grass root organisation Icebreakers that works with LGBT youth. Since he is a well-known gay activist in a country that is considered to be one of the worst countries for LGBT people, he is always on guard: “I live every day as it was my last”.
Icebreakers Uganda is a grass root organisation founded in 2004 that functions as a node for small networks, in both rural and urban Uganda. The discretely hidden office in Kampala is open throughout the week and plays an important part as a gathering point where people can meet and share experiences, use the library and get Internet access.
The interview gives considerable detail on the question and modalities of “coming out” linked to Brian’s own life experience.
The organisation strives to help people accept and be comfortable with their sexual orientation and gender identity, but calls for caution when coming out:
Interesting is that Brian states “Ironically, in 2009 the Anti Gay Bill actually led to a positive development for the LGBT movement in Uganda. Previously, only a few civil society organisations had included LGBT people’s rights in their work for human rights. With the tabling of the bill, a coalition of several civil society actors was formed to fight the Bill.” Kasha becoming the MEA Laureate in 2011 was another rallying point.
Foto: Ninke Liebert Photography
“As an activist, I can stand up and speak out. People may choose to listen and other may not. I can easily be made to shut up. But with art, it lasts for centuries and it reaches a wider audience. I prefer use of art and music because I know the biggest number of the community appreciates it compared to long boring speeches”.
Despite being constantly afraid, for his family’s sake, his gay and straight friends and himself, Brian continues to work because he has a vision for the LGBT community and Uganda at large. “A dream where people live harmoniously regardless of their differences: sexual orientation, race, gender and more. A society full of love”.
The Economist in its print edition of Nov 10th 2012 carries an interesting review of a new documentary on David Kato (pictured here with caption: “His death was not in vain”
In 2009 David Bahati, a backbench member of Parliament in deeply conservative Uganda, drew up a bill that proposed the death penalty for HIV-positive gay men and prison for anyone failing to turn in homosexuals. His proposals have been watered down, but not before prompting a surge in the homophobia and vigilantism that lie at the heart of an affecting new documentary, “Call Me Kuchu”.
When the film begins, a local tabloid newspaper, Rolling Stone, has printed the names and addresses of 100 kuchus (gay and transgender people) under such headlines as “Homo terror! We name and shame top gays in the city”. It is here that the viewer first meets David Kato (pictured), a sweet but resilient activist and Uganda’s first openly gay man. He is suing the newspaper. “If we keep on hiding,” he says, “they will say we’re not here.” Kato is joined by fellow kuchus: Stosh, who endured a “corrective” rape, and Naome, his best friend. Theirs is the human story behind the headlines. Meanwhile, the smarmy newspaper editor is almost unwatchable in his eagerness to harness the growing bigotry.
In exploring how much of this debate has been driven by religious leaders, the film-makers, Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, maintain a careful balance: footage of a visiting American evangelical group battling the “homosexual agenda” is interspersed with that of a staunch gay-rights supporter, a controversial Ugandan bishop, Christopher Senyonjo. Ubiquitous billboards quoting the Bible appear alternately ominous and benign. But it is Kato’s brutal murder, a year after the film started being made, that breaks the mood of polite even-handedness. Officially, his death is recorded as a burglary gone wrong. No one really believes that.
“Call Me Kuchu” is too raw and urgent to be called artful film-making. But its message rings loud and clear. Life for gay people in Uganda—as in much of Africa—is not just dangerous; it is deadly.
In the film on Kasha (MEA laureate 2011: http://www.martinennalsaward.org) there are also moving images of Kasha visiting David’s mother and his grave.
As I reported recently the Ugandan Government raided a regional workshop of gay rights NGOs as part of its continuing crusade against homosexuality. It is not surprising that on 20 June the news agency AFP reported that Uganda will ban 38 nongovernmental organisations for spreading homosexuality. According to AFP the minister for ethics and integrity, Simon Lokodo: “I have investigated and established beyond reasonable doubt that these NGOs have been involved in the promotion and recruitment in terms of the [gay] issues”. Lokodo did not specify which organisations would be de-registered but said that the list included international and Ugandan group.
“We will tell them to stop operating and they will not have the legal right to practice here”. Lokodo said he submitted the names of the organisations to the internal affairs ministry and hoped they would be de-listed in the near future. “The sooner we can do this the better,” Lokodo added for good measure.
MEA Laureate Kasha is likely to be in the firing line again.
A training workshop for human rights defenders organized by the East
and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project [EHAHRDP] has been interrupted
by uninvited media representatives and the police. Participants are
currently being questioned by the police.
EHAHRDP organized the training working on monitoring, documentation
and reporting of human rights violations for LGBTI defenders, which
opened this morning at Esella Country Hotel, Najjera, Kampala. The
workshop organisers, which brought together twenty HRDs from Uganda,
Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, as well as seven EHAHRDP staff members and
interns, stopped the meeting when they learned that the media was
coming to the hotel. Around ten journalists arrived at approximately
2.30pm, and two or three cameras were used to film the event. EHAHRDP
has not been able to establish who informed the media that the
training was taking place, although some of the journalists claimed to
have received the information via the Minister of Ethics and
Integrity, Rev. Simon Lokodo.
Soon afterwards, the police arrived and began to question
participants. Led by the head of the Kampala Metropolitan Criminal
Investigations Department, the police began by questioning Paul
Njogore from Freedom House, Jane Wothaya Thirikwa from Gay Kenya
Trust, Neil Blazevic (a Canadian citizen) and Tabitha Netuwa from
EHAHRDP, who were then held for some time in a police van and were
told they would be taken to the Kira Road police station. The police
are currently questioning all participants one-by-one, including by
forcibly entering their hotel rooms.
EHAHRDP calls on the Ugandan police to immediately release all
participants, and condemns this unjustified interruption of our
legitimate activities.
For more information, please contact:
The interest in the Kony-2012 video discussion has been such that I would be amiss in not referring you to the irreverent but sometimes funny treatment given by Charlie Brooker in the 10 o clock live on Channel 4
In 2009 David Bahati, a backbench member of Parliament in deeply conservative Uganda, drew up a bill that proposed the death penalty for HIV-positive gay men and prison for anyone failing to turn in homosexuals. His proposals have been watered down, but not before prompting a surge in the homophobia and vigilantism that lie at the heart of an affecting new documentary, “Call Me Kuchu”.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 