On May 31, Ugandan police arrested 44 people in an LGBTQI shelter in South Sana, Wakiso District, a few kilometers from the country’s capital, Kampala. These 44 people were later charged with “negligence that could spread infectious diseases”.

This group of people was detained for four days before being released on bail. This is a legal right, but for people whose lives have been convicted, they face strict bail conditions, and even obtaining a guarantor as usual is a huge challenge. Thanks to the excellent organization of many LGBTQI rights defenders in the country, they were released shortly before the resumption of lockdown measures in Uganda in the face of the second wave of COVID-19 that is currently raging.

This is the second raid on a shelter for LGBTQI people in more than a year. The stay-at-home order during the pandemic has a disproportionate impact on LGBTQI Ugandans. They face wider social exclusion and are often rejected by their families, leading some people to seek refuge in shelters provided by non-profit organizations.

Therefore, when the world began to celebrate and commemorate Pride Month, the Ugandan authorities once again participated, harassing, detaining them, and subjecting them to inhumane treatment, including “anal testing.” Although Ugandan MP Fox Odoi-Oywelowo claimed in a recent statement, the Ugandan government’s anti-LGBTQI policies and actions appear to have not weakened. Al Jazeera Column.

This recent raid and serious human rights violations during detention are part of the systematic sexual abuse of Ugandans based on a state-sanctioned sexual orientation and gender identity supported by religious and intolerant social attitudes. Colonial law enforcement. Day-to-day violations are often not reported, and worse, even go unpunished, because the political and social system refuses to recognize the human nature of sexual and gender minorities.

Uganda’s criminal law inherited from the British colonial rule criminalizes consensual same-sex behavior and punishes “physical knowledge that violates the natural order”, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. In 2014, as homosexuality became a rallying point for many political leaders, the country witnessed a high degree of intolerance, as the Parliament passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, allowing full legalized violence against LGBTQI Ugandans.

President Yoweri Museveni Signed the lawIn the face of international pressure, he is still optimistic. In an event, senior government officials and reporters were invited to witness. Before signing, he had commissioned medical experts to conduct “research”, and they found that homosexuality was the result of “nurtured rather than natural”.

Later the Constitutional Court break the law As the legal procedures were passed, the legal procedures were not followed, but they refused to resolve the substantive human rights issues raised in the case by the activists and relevant citizens.

Since then, threats to introduce another severe law prohibiting homosexuality has always been the favorite tool of any politician, especially when they are unpopular.

Faced with a change movement that swept the youth led by opposition leader and musician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, Museveni recently adopted an anti-LGBTQI campaign threatening strategy again. During the election boom in January 2021, Museveni told the country that “some of these groups are being used by outsiders…homosexuals…they don’t like Uganda’s stability and Uganda’s independence”.

The lives of so many Ugandans who have been marginalized and persecuted to be buried on the election altar are not only irresponsible but also dangerous. But he did it anyway, because he was convinced that the mix of moral and nationalist speech, even at surface value, would act as a glue in the ever-widening cracks based on his political support.

On May 3, Parliament passed the Sexual Offences Bill, which was originally designed to prevent and punish sexual violence and further criminalize homosexuality. The bill was introduced by civil society organizations working to end sexual violence against women, and these organizations clearly believe that the criminalization of same-sex behavior is reasonable.

The bill will punish any “sex between the same sex”, with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and further criminalize sex work and discriminate based on HIV status. If President Museveni agrees, the law will also punish Ugandans who engage in these sexual acts outside Uganda and maintain the death penalty for certain sexual crimes. In this unstable period, it will only bring more challenges to the safety, economic opportunities and mental health of LBGTQI people.

Networks like sexual minorities in Uganda have expressed their concern that this law will “intensify the already existing homophobic environment in Uganda, leading to further violations of rights”. The United Nations pointed out that this will make AIDS prevention more difficult because “many vulnerable groups, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men and sex workers, are still less likely than ordinary people to receive the HIV treatment and prevention they need. And nursing services”.

A few days after Parliament voted on the law, President Museveni, who has been in power for 35 years, was sworn in after overseeing one of the most violent elections in decades. His government is currently under pressure from some international actors due to election-related violence and arbitrary detention of political opponents.Promote accountability for killing innocent citizens, such as November 2020 Dozens of shots Security forces suppressed civilians in Kampala in response to protests against the re-arrest of Bobi Wine during the election campaign.

Although Odoi-Oywelowo painted a picture of Museveni’s progress and made promises beyond his control, the president used anti-gay rhetoric as fuel to appease his supporters for ten years and continue to do so.

To equate homosexuality with anti-Uganda would lose the lives of a few people on the political stage, allowing them to be debated and dehumanized after the election cycle. This kind of hate speech from the most powerful office in the country was imitated and reproduced at all levels, leading to the demise of many LGBTQI lives in Uganda.Insisting that homosexuality is a Western value or tool, when the West discovers it ingrained Being in Africa and continuing to criminalize it is playing populism.

The Ugandan government seems to intend to appease Western supporters by claiming that it will not approve the law, while at the same time weaponizing anti-Western and nationalist rhetoric against LGBTQI Ugandans. In short, they want to eat cake, and they want to eat cake.

A member of the ruling party asserted that Uganda would not (again) criminalize homosexuality, which is meaningless before existing laws, which are used by private citizens and state actors to arbitrarily detain, blackmail and abuse LGBTQI Ugandans .

To protect the human rights and safety of LGBTQI Ugandans, the Ugandan government must allow organizations that support them to work without harassment and intimidation, and take concrete steps to repeal laws that erode the rights of LGBTQI people, rather than just announcing that the parliament has passed The law will not be approved by the President.

Solving the impact of colonial laws on popular consciousness is a lifelong task, but decriminalization opens the way for this possibility. Countries such as Botswana and Angola took action in 2019 to repeal these legacy colonial laws that criminalize different-sex or same-sex relationships. Ugandan leaders should respect them, not consolidate inherited oppression.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.