The electronic music festival Nyege Nyege, one of the largest in East Africa and which has brought together more than 100,000 people, was banned by the Ugandan parliament, which considered that the event “promotes immorality.”
The festival was supposed to take place over four days from September 15 in the city of Jinja in the south-east of the country, marking the return to the stage after the Covid-19 pandemic, but the parliament announced in his Twitter account that the festival had been “banned”. .
“It promotes immorality and we don’t want this immorality in our country,” Ethics and Integrity Minister Rose Lilly Akello told reporters.
VIDEO: Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Rose Lilly Akello explains why Parliament bans the Nyege Nyege Festival. The event was scheduled for September 15, 2022. #NTVNews
@zziwaherbert pic.twitter.com/GJgs5C3TiE
-NTV UGANDA (@ntvuganda) September 6, 2022
His colleague in charge of Tourism, Martín Mugarura, admitted to the France-Presse news agency (AFP) that banning the festival would have a negative impact on the economy, which is struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“More than 8,000 foreign tourists have already bought their tickets and will have to stay in the country during the festival and beyond,” he said, adding that he hopes the authorities will reverse the decision.
The festival was previously banned in 2018 by former ethics minister Simon Lokodo, a devout Catholic homophobe, according to AFP.
“We will not accept the loss of our morals, homosexuality will not be accepted,” he said then, arguing that the festival “is close to the cult of the devil and therefore it is unacceptable,” but ended up withdrawing due to the controversy generated on social networks.
The expression ‘Nyege Nyege’ means an irresistible urge to dance in the Luganda language, but can also have sexual connotations in other dialects of the region.
Homophobia is widespread in Uganda, where so-called “unnatural” relationships are punishable by life imprisonment under a law dating back to British colonization.
Harassment and intimidation are part of daily life for gays in this country, where evangelical Christianity is particularly vocal about the LGBTQ movement.
In December 2013, Uganda adopted a new law punishing “promotion of homosexuality” and making it mandatory to report homosexuals, but the law, which sparked a strong international backlash, was struck down by the Constitutional Court in August 2014.
Source: TSF
