Uganda

Gay rights groups have condemned a Ugandan pastor who screened same-sex pornography in a church to try to bolster support for proposed anti-homosexuality legislation.

Martin Ssempa, one of the main backers of a Bill that would impose the death penalty for some offenders, aired the explicit slideshow to several hundred people during a church service in Kampala.

South African gay rights group, Behind the Mask, has described the video as ’twisted homophobic propaganda’.

Impunity for past electoral violence is a major barrier to a free and fair election in Uganda in 2011, according to a summary of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.

The report points out that the perpetrators from all sides of the political spectrum have very rarely faced justice for crimes committed in past elections.

It further states that those responsible for earlier offences, as well as those contemplating crimes, will feel unconstrained in future elections barring new measures and increased enforcement.

Ugandan civil society organisations have warned against criminalising the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Action Aid Uganda’s Stella Mukasa, notes that, “Criminalising the transmission of the disease invokes stigma, discrimination and deters voluntary testing and access to treatment.”

Mukasa argues that applying criminal law to HIV transmission could result in women being disproportionately prosecuted and increase domestic violence.

African leaders have gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala for a two-day summit aimed at agreeing on a treaty on improving the plight of the continent's 17 million refugees and displaced.

The Convention on the Protection and Assistance of the Displaced People in Africa is the first of its kind aimed at internally displaced people, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

A report entitled ‘Development Cooperation Report 2007-2008,’ published by the Ugandan government with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme, shows that most donors in that country provide support through civil society despite the government's efforts to persuade them to do so through the budget.

According to the report: "The proportion of support to Uganda administered outside the government is significant. In some sectors, it exceeds 90 per cent of the total funding from development partners."

The Uganda Debt Network, a NGO that advocates for pro-poor policies, has threatened to drag the Ugandan government to court over the purchase of expensive cars for Cabinet ministers.

The Network’s Patrick Tumwebaze points out that, "We want to use the courts of law and demonstrations to send a message to the public that they deserve a responsible government."

Tumwebaze says that the country’s infant mortality rate is at 39 percent, clean is accessed by 54 percent and 40 percent of the budget is foreign-funded.

New research suggests that circumcising HIV-positive men does not reduce the risk of their female partners becoming HIV-infected.

The findings, reported in the British medical journal, The Lancet, emerged from a clinical trial in Rakai District, southern Uganda, involving 922 HIV-infected men and 163 of their HIV-negative female partners.

Ugandan civil society organisations have asked their government to enact a law criminalising torture before the 2011 general elections.

“We call upon the Government to affirm its commitment to eliminate torture in Uganda by enacting the prevention of torture Bill into law," says Chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Meddie Kaggwa. 

Kaggwa says the current laws on torture are inadequate, and although torture is covered in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2002, it only applies to authorised officers.