THE United Nations rights chief is urging Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to block an anti-LGBTQ bill that prescribes harsh penalties for some homosexual offenses, including death and life imprisonment.
“The passing of this discriminatory bill – probably among the worst of its kind in the world – is a deeply troubling development,” Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement Wednesday.
Uganda’s legislature passed the bill late Tuesday in a protracted plenary session during which last-minute changes were made to the legislation that originally included penalties of up to 10 years in jail for homosexual offenses.
In the version passed by lawmakers the offense of “aggravated homosexuality” now carries the death penalty. Aggravated homosexuality applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable people.
According to the bill, a suspect convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” can
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