Ugandan police on Monday arrested four people for allegedly engaging in same-sex activity following a raid on a massage parlour. The arrests come three months after the introduction of repressive anti-gay legislation triggered an international backlash.
Police authorities said two men and two women aged between 20 and 27 were taken into custody on Saturday in the eastern district of Buikwe.
"The police operation was carried out following a tip-off by a female informant to the area security that acts of homosexuality were being carried out at the massage parlour," police spokeswoman Hellen Butoto said.
Condemnation
The United Nations, foreign governments and global rights groups have condemned the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed into law by President Yoweri Museveni in May.
The World Bank this month suspended new loans to Uganda in retaliation, saying the law "fundamentally contradicted" its values.
In May France expressed "deepest concern" over the law.
"France reiterates its call for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality and its opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances," the government said on its official website.
"It calls on the Ugandan authorities to renounce this law and expresses its support for all LGBT+ people in Uganda."
Among the world's harshest, the law contains provisions making "aggravated homosexuality" a potentially capital offence and penalties for consensual same-sex relations of up to life in prison.
However the legislation has broad support in the conservative, predominantly Christian East African country, where lawmakers have defended it as a necessary bulwark against perceived Western immorality.
Museveni accused the World Bank of using money to try to "coerce" his government to drop the legislation.
'Grave risk'
Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a leading gay rights organisation whose operations were suspended by the authorities last year, said the passage of the bill posed a grave risk to LGBTQI+ people.
"There's a contradiction because the legislation says you can be gay but you shouldn't say anything about it," he told AFP.
Furthermore, the near-unanimous approval of the bill by lawmakers "shows you how extreme and homophobic the MPs are and puts LGBTQI+ people in even more danger."
(with AFP)
