Ugandan authorities have banned a prominent LGBT rights group movement constituting, a major setback for the country’s LGBT community.
Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) has been ordered to close with “immediate effect” for failing to properly register with the Country’s authorities.
The campaign group slammed the order as the government’s “clear witch hunt” against LGBT Ugandans.
In Uganda, where anti-gay and transphobic sentiments are prevalent, sexual minorities face widespread persecution.
Gay relationships are illegal in Uganda, where they can result in prison sentences of up to life for committing “unnatural offences.”
According to official police data, 194 people were charged with the offense between 2017 and 2020, with 25 convicted.
Smug director Frank Mugisha, a gay activist from Uganda, said: “This is a clear witch hunt rooted in systematic homophobia, fuelled by anti-gay and anti-gender movements.”
He claimed that the government was attempting to completely erase the LGBT minority in Uganda and treating its members as second-class citizens.
Smug, a campaign organization founded in 2004, had its operations suspended on Friday by Ugandan authorities because it had improperly registered its name with the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
Several civil society organizations, including pro-democracy organizations, were also banned by Ugandan authorities last year for the same reason.
This time, according to the authorities, the problem starts with Smug’s name, Sexual Minorities Uganda.
Smug attempted to register with the authorities in 2012, according to a statement from the NGO Bureau, but the application was turned down because Smug’s full name was deemed “undesirable.”
Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda since 1986, has a history of homophobic remarks, including one in a 2016 CNN interview in which he called gay people “disgusting.”
Despite the fact that being transgender is not expressly illegal in Uganda, reports from rights organizations indicate that Trans people are frequently charged with other crimes like “personation” (false representation).
Smug has been fighting for the rights of LGBT people in Uganda ever since it was founded nearly 20 years ago. It does this by promoting access to healthcare and encouraging LGBT people to live openly.
In 2010, it successfully petitioned a Ugandan judge to order a newspaper to stop publishing the names and images of gay Ugandan men under the headline “hang them.” It has also taken legal action to protect gay people from discrimination.
The group claimed that as a result of the article, several of its members had been attacked or harassed, including one woman who was nearly killed when her neighbors started throwing stones at her house.
At the time, Ugandan politicians were debating whether to implement the death penalty for same-sex relationships, a legislative amendment that drew widespread international condemnation before being dropped.
Smug has recently spoken out against anti-gay speeches delivered by Ugandan politicians, including in the run-up to the 2021 national elections.
“Politicians are using the LGBT community as a scapegoat to gain support and votes, which is fueling homophobia,” Smug’s director Frank Mugisha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
