Activists condemn police over raiding gay conference
By Solomon Arinaitwe
Posted Wednesday, June 20 2012 at 00:00
Posted Wednesday, June 20 2012 at 00:00
Ms Michelle Kagari, the Amnesty deputy director for Africa, said there was a worrying pattern emerging whereby Ugandan authorities deliberately engage in arbitrary activities to intimidate and threaten legitimate human rights work.
The Monday afternoon workshop was organised by the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project to equip rights activists in monitoring, documentation and reporting rights abuses in the region at Najjera in Kira Town Council.
Access denied
Participants had come in from Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
At least five staff of the project were detained alongside 12 of the workshop participants while others escaped after being tipped off about the police raid.
Witnesses said most participants arrived quietly.
“Most of them came in on boda bodas and some riders were left stranded at the gate as they waited for the passengers to come back,” Fred, who lives opposite the hotel gate said.
Journalists were denied access to the hotel but the participants were seen lounging in the compound.
Amnesty International urged the police to end “its outrageous behaviour which makes a mockery of Uganda’s human rights obligations.”
Uganda faced international criticism when Ndorwa West legislator David Bahati tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill in 2009, pending a piece of legislation which proposed punitive measures like the death penalty for offenders.
The international community maintains that homosexuality is a human right but promoters of the Bill argue that it is an affront to African and Ugandan culture.
editorial@ug.nationmedia.com
Ugandan police raid gay rights meeting
6/19/12
11:33 AM
Kampala
Kampala
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East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, the organisation behind the workshop, said that police interrupted the meeting and began questioning participants at the event, including activists from Canada, Kenya and Rwanda.
The police forced their way into some of the activists' hotel rooms, the group said in a statement.
The training workshop was intended to bolster the local gay community's abilities to report rights abuses, the statement said.
Activists condemned the police action and said it represented a growing trend.
"This ludicrous and senseless harassment of human rights activists has no basis in law whatsoever and has to stop," Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International's deputy director for Africa, said in a statement.
"We are seeing a worrying pattern emerging whereby the Ugandan authorities engage in arbitrary activities deliberately designed to intimidate and threaten legitimate human rights work," Kagari said.
In February police led by ethics minister Simon Lokodo shut down a gay rights meeting in the town of Entebbe.
Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and can be punished by lengthy prison sentences.
Since 2009 a controversial bill has been before parliament that would impose the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.
