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 those who have same-sex relationships and who “promote” homosexuality.
The crime of “aggravated homosexuality” is punishable by death, a sentence which has not, however, been applied for years in Uganda.
United Nations outrage
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 promulgation of this law, considering that this text “essentially went against the values of the World Bank”.
US President Joe Biden has called the law a “serious violation” of human rights and threatened to suspend aid and investment in Uganda, while the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell saw a law “contrary to human rights “. “.
The new legislation nevertheless received broad support in Uganda, a country with a conservative Christian majority, where lawmakers had deemed the text a necessary bulwark against alleged immorality in the West.
⋙ European scientists have managed to virtually reproduce human brains after 10 years of effort
President Museveni also accused the World Bank of wanting to “put pressure” on his country. Ugandans “develop with or without loans”, he said.
This article is originally published on geo.fr
