By Frank Kamuntu
University students in Uganda have cut of Kampala streets marching to the Parliament to thank Speaker Anita Annet Among, HE Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and the legislators for passing the Anti-homosexuality Bill.
The marching attracted hundreds of students from 13 universities across the country.
Videos shared online showed the students in a peaceful march as they sang patriotic songs in a show of appreciation and solidarity with the lawmakers and Head of State.
“The God almighty we lay our future in thy hands, united people liberty today,” they sang on the steps of Parliament’s entrance.
“We don’t want your pro-gay money. We want and love our country more than money,” the students said.
Museveni on Monday signed into law what has been termed the world’s harshest anti-gay Bill which prescribes the death penalty for homosexual acts.
It followed the overwhelming passage of the Bill by Uganda’s Parliament on March 21 where only one of the 389 MPs who attended the debate objected to its enactment.
Museveni, a vocal opponent of gay rights, commended the legislators for having “rejected the pressure from the imperialists.”
The law prescribes the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality or forcing children, the disabled, mentally ill persons and those of advanced age into homosexuality.
Attempted homosexuality will attract a 14-year jail term and up to 20 years for the promotion of homosexuality. Recruiters of children into homosexuality will be slapped with a ten-year jail sentence.
Anyone who “knowingly allow[s] their premises to be used for acts of homosexuality” faces seven years in jail.
Museveni’s move to sign the Bill into law drew outrage from homosexuals with the UK terming it “deeply discriminatory” and one that will “damage Uganda’s international reputation.”
US President Joe Biden, a pure campaigner for homosexuality, termed it a “shameful” and “tragic violation of universal human rights.”
He said Washington was considering imposing “sanctions and restriction of entry into the United States against anyone involved in serious human rights abuses but Uganda has since trashed these threats and warned homosexuals to get saved or rot in jail.
