The European Parliament (EP) condemned this Thursday Ugandan legislation that violates the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the African country and considered that relations with Kampala “are at risk” if the decree goes ahead.
In a plenary session, which takes place this week in Strasbourg (France), the MEPs condemned the diploma “which proposes the death penalty, life imprisonment or up to 20 years in prison for ‘crimes’ of homosexuality, or its promotion”.
The EP warned that this law “violates the Constitution of Uganda, the country’s obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and international law.”
And they dramatized: relations with Kampala “are at risk if President Yoweri Museveni turns the diploma into a decree.”
This legislation, the MEPs argued, has raised concerns about being introduced at a time when persecution of the LGBTQ+ community (acronym for lesbian, ‘gay’, bisexual, transgender, ‘queer’ and others) has increased in several African countries. .
The approved resolution “deplores Museveni’s contribution to hateful rhetoric about LGBTQ+ people.”
For this reason, the European Parliament asked the European Commission to adopt all possible diplomatic actions, “legal and financial”, to prevent the signing of the diploma.
“The deputies are concerned about the current anti-rights, anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ + movements, fueled by political and religious leaders from all over the world, including in the European Union,” they maintained in the resolution approved in plenary.
“These moves drastically diminish efforts to achieve decriminalization of homosexuality and transgender identity. […]by stating that the LGBTQ+ community is an ideology and not a human being,” he added.
Source: TSF
