Biden warns Uganda will face sanctions and other penalties if severe anti-gay law is not immediately repealed

‘No one should have to live in constant fear for their life or being subjected to violence and discrimination’

US President Joe Biden demanded the “immediate repeal” of Uganda’s severe anti-gay law and will consider sanctions or other penalties against the African country and its leadership.

On 29 May, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed legislation that imposes grave penalties for “promoting” homosexuality, including the possibility of the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” or unknowingly transmitting HIV/AIDS.

The law is a “tragic violation of universal human rights – one that is not worthy of the Ugandan people, and one that jeopardizes the prospects of critical economic growth for the entire country,” President Biden said in a statement.

“I join with people around the world – including many in Uganda – in calling for its immediate repeal,” he added. “No one should have to live in constant fear for their life or being subjected to violence and discrimination. It is wrong.”

The president has directed the National Security Council to “evaluate the implications of this law on all aspects of US engagement with Uganda,” including US commitments for AIDS relief, and the administration will also consider “additional steps,” including sanctions and restricted entry into the country for “anyone involved in serious human rights abuses or corruption.”

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the US government’s flagship programme to combat HIV/AIDS globally, also warned in a joint statement with other global relief programmes that Uganda’s law puts the nation’s flight against HIV “in grave jeopardy”.

Same-sex relationships already were illegal in Uganda, and existing law called for 10-year prison sentences for intentionally transmitting HIV, and did not apply when the person who contracted HIV was aware of their partner’s status. The latest law, however, makes no distinction between intentional and unintentional transmission, and makes no exceptions around HIV status.

The new legislation is a more severe version of a 2014 bill that was also globally condemned before it was struck down by a Ugandan court.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the US also will “develop mechanisms to support the rights of LGBTQI+ individuals in Uganda and to promote accountability for Ugandan officials and other individuals responsible for, or complicit in, abusing their human rights.”

A statement from the United Nations Human Rights office said the “draconian” law is a “recipe for systematic violations of the rights of LGBT people [and] the wider population” and requires “urgent judicial review.”

LGBT+ advocates and human rights groups have warned that the law could have a ripple effect across the continent where fewer than half of its nations legally allow homosexuality., with legislation fuelled in part by an influential coalition of American right-wing Christian organisations that have gained an international foothold while authoring and promoting anti-LGBT+ legislation in the US.

More than 20 American religious organisations have spent tens of millions of dollars in Africa to fight against LGBT+ rights and safe access to abortion, contraceptives and comprehensive sex education over the last decade, according to Open Democracy.

Virginia-based nonprofit group Fellowship Foundation, whose Uganda associate David Bahari introduced anti-gay legislation that was struck down in 2014, has reportedly spent more than $20m in the country between 2008 and 2018.

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the latest law is “by far the most horrific display of bigotry we have seen in recent memory in Uganda, and in all of Africa.”

“The Ugandan Parliament should be ashamed of themselves for considering this draconian law that erases the internationally recognized rights of LGBTQ+ Ugandans, and President Museveni should be condemned for not using the full power of his position to stop it,” she added.