78ers Condemn LGBTQ Human Rights Abuses In Uganda

We are alarmed at reports from Uganda of increasing incitement of violence against LGBTQIA+ communities and coordinated campaigns encouraging discrimination and vilification of lesbians, gay men and transgender and queer people. A Human Rights Watch report titled Uganda: New Anti-Gay Bill Further Threatens Rights dated March 9, 2023, out of Nairobi, documents Ugandan politicians attempting to recriminalize homosexuality and make it illegal to even say that you are gay, transgender or queer in the East African nation.

The MP Asuman Basalirwa introduced his anti-gay bill to the Ugandan Parliament on the same day Human Rights Watch released its report. He told parliament his bill would punish people engaged in promotion, recruitment and funding related to LGBTQ activities each of which would attract gaol sentences of 5 years. People who were found to be LGBTQ would face imprisonment for up to 10 years. In effect the law would criminalize people not for their actions or behaviour but for simply being who they are.

Recently in Sydney we heard harrowing first-hand accounts from African LGBTQIA+ leaders, refugees and asylum seekers at the Forcibly Displaced People Network Conference held at the Western Sydney University on February 22-23 and at the Sydney World Pride Human Rights Conference at the Sydney Convention Centre at Darling Harbour, March 1-3, 2023. Homosexuality is criminalized in 30 of Africa’s 54 countries. What is clear is that there is a new hateful wave stigmatising queer people in several of these countries. As Oryen Nyeko, a researcher in the African division of Human Rights Watch points out, some politicians are once again using homophobia for political capital. Religious leaders too are exploiting the oppression of sexual minorities to further their own agendas.

In a document titled A Sydney Declaration of LGBTQIA+ Rights announced at the time of the recent Sydney World Pride, 78ers and multicultural queer community groups in Sydney stated:

“LGBTQIA+ people have become pawns in international powerplays. We are easy targets. This politicised homophobia and transphobia is a tactic used by wealthy elites all over the world seeking to consolidate and maintain their power.

Amidst the anguish of this fragile, broken world where is the leadership to navigate these times? This, we believe, is the right time to rethink all our futures and Australia has a role to play on the world stage. We need to stand up for each other if we are to combat the new realities of our lives.”

We urge the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to make very clear to the Ugandan government that it would be unwise to pass the anti-homosexuality bill introduced into parliament by MP Asuman Basalirwa on 9 March 2023. We request Australian diplomats to initiate through the Commonwealth an urgent action by the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) secretariate to pressure long-standing Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, to intervene and refrain from introducing laws that are an affront to basic human rights.

We call on religious leaders including those of Australian Christian churches and Australian Muslim leaders to publicly condemn the hateful incitement to violence embodied within the anti-homosexuality bill currently before the Ugandan parliament. Grand Mufti Sheik Shaban Mubaje’s public comments supporting the banning of all homosexual practice in Uganda and the hateful comments by leaders of Christian ministries will simply lead to blackmail, assault, extortion, and violence against LGBTQ persons who are already fearing threats to their lives.

We also call on all international queer solidarity organisations and NGO’s and those who work within the human rights framework of the United Nations to speak out on the plight of LGBTQIA+ African groups, leaders and those seeking asylum.

The constant message we 78ers had when we were young in Australia, was that we had no right to be who we were. We faced the heavy weight of seemingly immutable laws, immovable moralistic dogma, and entrenched traditions that were all hostile to us. We worked democratically to overcome these huge barriers. Today there are millions of LGBTQIA+ people growing up fearful and vulnerable in societies influenced still by anti-human belief systems. We don’t want them or future generations to have to face what we faced.

We assert that the fight for sexual minorities to be free from oppression is a just struggle.

Signed: Mark Gillespie, Cedric Yin Cheng, Peter Murphy, Peter de Waal AO, Titi Chartay, Steve Warren, Gary Schliemann, Meredith Knight

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