Ugandan lawmakers have announced plans to resurrect its “kill the gays” bill which mandates the death penalty for homosexuality. The bill, which has the support of President Yoweri Museveni, is expected to be introduced and voted on by the end of the year.
Reuters reports: ‘The bill – colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda – was nullified five years ago on a technicality and the government said it plans to resurrect it within weeks. “Homosexuality is not natural to Ugandans, but there has been a massive recruitment by gay people in schools, and especially among the youth, where they are promoting the falsehood that people are born like that,” Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.’
Added Lokodo: “Our current penal law is limited. It only criminalises the act. We want it made clear that anyone who is even involved in promotion and recruitment has to be criminalised. Those that do grave acts will be given the death sentence.”
In 2015, Museveni said the “kill the gays” bill, which was thrown out by the Constitutional Court of Uganda in 2014, over a technicality, was “not necessary” because British penal codes outlawing homosexuality are already on the country’s books.
