Category: uganda

Rolling Stone editor appears on BBC News; says tabloid is in public interest

Giles Muhame, a recent Makerere University journalism graduate and editor of the temporarily stalled Rolling Stone Uganda-style, appeared on BBC News today. Here is the link to the audio.

And here is the article based on the interview, also featuring Frank Mugisha representing the GLB community in Uganda.

Frank Mugisha said one woman was almost killed after her neighbours started throwing stones at her house.

He said most of those whose names appeared in Uganda’s Rolling Stone paper had been harassed.

Last year, a local MP called for the death penalty for some homosexual acts.

The proposed Anti-homosexuality Bill sparked an international outcry and a year later has not been formally debated by parliament.

Ugandan government minister Nsaba Buturo supports Hang Them campaign

The world is noticing Uganda again, this time due to the outing campaign conducted with deadly intent by the tabloid, Rolling Stone. This CNN report quotes Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo on the subject:

Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister Nsaba Buturo dismissed the activists’ accusations.

“They [the activists] are always lying,” Buturo said. “It’s their way of mobilizing support from outside, they are trying to get sympathy from outside. It’s part of the campaign.”

Buturo said the anti-gay measure will be addressed and passed “in due course.”

“Of course I hope it passes,” he said.

Buturo is referring to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and provides another evidence that the bill has not been withdrawn and at least in the minds of the supporters is very much alive.

According to a comment on editor Giles Muhame’s Facebook page, he believes the standoff between the government and the paper is soon to end:

The deliberations between Rolling Stone, Uganda’s leading investigative newspaper and the Media council are now ‘apetising’. The standoff is soon coming to an end.

According to the CNN piece, the government is not pursuing the paper due to the outing campaign, but because all of the necessary paperwork needed to operate a paper has not been completed.

After the list was published, the federal Media Council sent a warning to Muhame and ordered the newspaper to cease operating.

But the warning was “not related to the list at all,” said Paul Mukasa, secretary of the Media Council. Rather, he said, the letter warned the paper that it was publishing without required permits.

“Until they fill in the required paperwork, they are breaking the law,” Mukasa said.

The secretary said the newspaper has initiated the process “to put their house in order.”

Jeff Sharlet talks about Uganda on Democracy Now

Not usually my source for news, but this clip of Jeff Sharlet on Democracy Now is interesting in that he says David Bahati is ready to move the Anti-Homosexuality Bill along. Specifically at 32:43, Sharlet says:

What I’m hearing from David Bahati, the author of the bill, with whom I am still in touch, is that he’s now being promised a second reading, and this new step in the press is a very alarming one because it shows that its moving back to the forefront of Ugandan society.

 

The at 33:00, after the statement about the current status of the bill, Sharlet mentions the connection between Martin Ssempa and Canyon Ridge Christian Church, which, as Sharlet points out, I have documented repeatedly.

There is much more in the interview, some of it pretty controversial stuff, but I want to make two quick points. One is that the outing campaign could be a means to reignite the bill, as Sharlet suggests. The bill has not been withdrawn, and if Bahati is correct, he may get his second reading.

The second point is that I think Jeff is generally correct about the membership of Canyon Ridge. I think if church members had a true picture of what the Anti-Homosexuality Bill really contained, they would be horrified. However, the leadership of the church has not posted the bill in favor of edited documents which obscure it’s plain language.

And I continue to wonder why the Human Rights Campaign of Las Vegas, who met with Canyon Ridge leaders over a month ago, have said nothing about a church in their community which indirectly supports a bill which is terrorizing GLBT people in Uganda.

UPDATE: Jim Burroway reported this last week but I neglected to add this piece of information to any of my posts: The Uganda tabloid Rolling Stone has been halted by the government, at least temporarily. Apparently the paper did not meet all regulations necessary.  Click the image to read it…

AP reports Ugandan Hang Them campaign, obscures status of AHB

On October 4, BoxTurtleBulletin and I reported (with more here) that a Ugandan tabloid – Rolling Stone – started a campaign of outing gay people with the caption “Hang Them” on the front cover of the rag.

Today, the Associated Press published a story covering the same issue with some new details of the worsening conditions for gays in Uganda. Check this out and compare it to Martin Ssempa’s contention that gays are not in danger in his country.

The AP story did obscure one important point:

KAMPALA, Uganda — The front-page newspaper story featured a list of Uganda’s 100 “top” homosexuals, with a bright yellow banner across it that read: “Hang Them.” Alongside their photos were the men’s names and addresses.

In the days since it was published, at least four gay Ugandans on the list have been attacked and many others are in hiding, according to rights activist Julian Onziema. One person named in the story had stones thrown at his house by neighbors.

A lawmaker in this conservative African country introduced a bill a year ago that would have imposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts and life in prison for others. An international uproar ensued, and the bill was quietly shelved.

As I noted on the 14th, the anniversary of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s introduction, the bill remains in committee. If by shelved, these reporters mean the bill has been withdrawn, they provide no direct confirmation of this. To my knowledge, the only source close to the bill who has provided a comment is Charles Tuhaise who told me recently that the bill remains in committee and awaits hearings and a second reading.

On September 13, Peter Boyer of The New Yorker reported without source that the Fellowship was involved in the withdrawal of the bill, writing:

Hunter brought Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the former African rebel who became Uganda’s President, and other key Ugandan leaders into prayer groups. When Uganda’s Parliament took up a bill last year that would have punished some homosexual acts with death, Hunter and his friends in the Fellowship felt they had the standing to urge the proposed measure’s defeat. Museveni appointed a commission that studied the matter and then recommended that the bill be withdrawn.

Since this is the extent of Boyer’s reporting on the bill, it misleads the reader into thinking that the bill was, in fact, withdrawn. Not so, according to the Parliamentary Research Services’ Charles Tuhaise.

The AP article does not source their contention about the bill. Instead, the writers reveal that they were not able to get anyone in Parliament to talk about the bill:

Four members of parliament contacted by The Associated Press for this article declined to comment, and instead referred queries to David Bahati, the parliamentarian who introduced the bill. Bahati did not answer repeated calls Tuesday.

While I do not know what the future holds for the AHB, I am aware that, as recently as the beginning of this month, supporters were still calling for the passage of the measure. As reported here on October 11, Martin Ssempa was still promoting the bill’s passage in a private talk given several days before. If anyone would know about the bill’s status, it would be Ssempa who emerged as the bill’s chief pastoral supporter in Uganda.

One year later: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Yesterday, I posted a statement from Uganda’s sexual minority community about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. Today, I want to post a current status report and some observations.

My first post on the bill was titled, Uganda: The other shoe drops and detailed the little we knew at the time based on Ugandan news reports. Within a couple of weeks, it became clearer who in Uganda was promoting the bill (e.g., Martin Ssempa) and attention turned to American connections to those Ugandan ministers and politicians.

I started writing early (Oct 28) on this topic hoping to get some attention on these American connections as well as generate response from American evangelicals. The Facebook group (now 16,000+ members) quickly generated thousands of members involving liberals, conservatives, gays, straights, people of faith and people of no faith. At heart, it was an effort to mobilize people of faith to speak out. All of the blog posts (well over 100) can be seen here.

The current status of the bill is that it remains under consideration by the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee. According to Charles Tuhaise, a researcher in the Parliamentary Research service, no public hearings have been scheduled. A second reading cannot be scheduled until hearings have been conducted and a committee report has been prepared. Time is running out; the Ugandan elections are coming and the current Parliament ends inn May, 2011. Hon. David Bahati, the mover of the bill, has not responded to my questions about where he takes the bill from here.

Even though the bill seems to be stalled in committee, the effects on the daily lives of GLBT people in Uganda are quite negative. As noted in the statement yesterday from Sexual Minorities Uganda, since the bill was introduced conditions have worsened for them. Even though the bill has not moved, that has not stopped bill supporters such as Julius Oyet, David Kiganda, and Martin Ssempa from preaching stereotypes about gays and continuing what Martin Ssempa called “the war.” 

Due to the ongoing efforts of Ssempa and allies, attention has turned to the Americans which support these Ugandan preachers. Julius Oyet has been supported in the past by an Atlanta area church, New Gate International Church, headed by Apostle Venessa Battle. Rev. Battle is one of the approved apostles listed in C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles. Last month, when I called New Gate, a representative there said the church has support Rev. Oyet in the past but declined to say to what degree. She also said she would provide a statement regarding Rev. Oyet’s support for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, but never followed up.

The most prominent American church involved with a Ugandan leader in the anti-gay movement is Canyon Ridge Christian Church. Canyon Ridge leaders told me recently that they continue to evaluate their stance and may have a new statement soon.  The fallout from the AHB has been substantial for CRCC. They have experienced unflattering national attention to their support for Martin Ssempa, and the loss of two community partnerships with AIDS related groups – Southern Nevada Health District and Aid for AIDS Nevada. One group, the Human Rights Campaign – Las Vegas met with Canyon Ridge leaders in September but has not said anything publicly about the church’s stance on the AHB. The HRC-LV has not responded to repeated requests for information about their stance on the AHB or CRCC’s support for Martin Ssempa.

There are many other American connections I could raise (e.g., Lou Engle, College of Prayer). Overall, Uganda’s AHB has become a point of division for American evangelicals. Some evangelicals believe criminalization of homosexuality would be a good thing (most recently the Tea Party darling, David Barton), while others (e.g., Rick Warren) do not. (Count me squarely on the side that believes the state has no business regulating such behavior.) And as indicated by Barton’s comments, one year later, the issues raised by the AHB in Uganda are still alive in American politics as well.