A 20-year-old man has been charged with “aggravated homosexuality” in Uganda, a qualification provided for in a law enacted in May, considered one of the most repressive in the world, we learned on Monday from a judicial source.
The suspect was “charged in Soroti (in the east of the country) and he was incarcerated,” said Ugandan prosecutor’s spokeswoman Jacquelyn Okui.
According to the indictment, which AFP was able to consult, the young man is accused of having had “illegal sexual intercourse with (…) a 41-year-old adult man“.
At the end of May, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law an anti-homosexuality law which imposes heavy penalties for people who have same-sex relationships and who “promote” homosexuality.
The crime of “aggravated homosexuality” is punishable by death, a sentence which has not been applied for years in Uganda.
This law has sparked outrage from the United Nations, human rights groups and many Western countries.
At the beginning of August, the World Bank announced that it would no longer finance new projects in Uganda following the enactment of this law, believing that this text “went fundamentally against the values of the World Bank“.
US President Joe Biden called the law a “serious violation” of human rights and threatened to suspend aid and investment in Uganda, while European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell saw it as a law “contrary to human rights. humans“.
The new legislation nevertheless received broad support in Uganda, a country with a conservative Christian majority, where lawmakers said the text was a necessary bulwark against alleged immorality in the West.
President Museveni also accused the World Bank of wanting to “put pressure” on his country. Ugandans “will grow with or without loans,” he said.
This article is originally published on komitid.fr
