Ugandan watchdog in push to outlaw LGBTQ groups

The Ugandan government is pushing for the criminalization of LGBTQ organizations and their operations there.

The country's laws should be changed to make homosexual and bisexual behavior illegal, according to a report released in January by the NGO Bureau, an official agency that regulates the activities of NGOs.

A new law "that restricts the promotion of LGBTQ activities in the country" is advocated as an alternative.

In order for the NGO Bureau to "identify and weed out those who are participating in activities that are harmful to the interests of the people of Uganda," it is further stated that the government must give it more resources.

In Uganda, homosexual relationships are against the law and are subject to "unnatural offences" that carry sentences of up to life in prison.

The report is the end result of a year-long examination of the operations of NGOs working in Uganda to advance the rights of sexual minorities.

The bureau claims to have received complaints about a number of organizations, but it didn't specify where the complaints originated.

The investigation of 26 NGOs as a whole is still ongoing for several of them.

One of the most well-known LGBTQ organizations in the nation, Sexual Minorities Uganda, is alleged to have been neither properly registered as an NGO nor as a corporation.

The organization was to be shut down by the NGO Bureau in August 2022, but since then, it has filed a complaint with the East African Court of Justice challenging that decision.

Due to their involvement in LGBTQ human rights activities, at least three other organizations' bureau registration requests were turned down.

Several government representatives and national leaders have recently spoken out against the "promotion of LGBT activities" in the nation.

The head of the Anglican Church of Uganda, Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba, railed against the recent Church of England decision to endorse same-sex unions last week.

Homosexuality is a sin, according to Archbishop Kaziimba, and the Anglican church in Uganda would not support it.

Additionally, there have been new calls in parliament for the creation and presentation of a fresh anti-gay law.

When Uganda approved an anti-homosexuality law in 2013, it attracted attention from all over the world. After a court determined that it had been passed without the necessary quorum in parliament, it was later declared invalid in 2014.