Uganda’s anti-LGBT+ panic is a distraction from the country’s real issues

Stigmatising and terrorising individuals, contributing to the spread of HIV, and falling prey to the machinations of a wily dictator only harm society, writes Borzou Daragahi

Fear, death and dictatorship are not family values (AP)

Many human rights activists across the world are worried that the new Uganda law blatantly discriminating against Uganda’s LGBT+ community could lead to violence and repression of the east African country’s most vulnerable. But the truth is that pogroms against the country’s sexual minorities had already begun.

Even before the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 was signed into law by the long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni on 29 May and made international headlines, the country’s LGBT+ community was living in fear.

The law imposes a potential life sentence or even a possible death penalty on those convicted of consensual sex acts. However, for nearly a decade, Uganda’s LGBT+ communities have faced rising numbers of arbitrary arrests, abuse at the hands of cops, workplace purges, loss of homes, and denial of healthcare, according to human rights researchers.