Human Rights Advocates Challenge Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Law In Court

"Today I am #PetitonerNo7 and #IAMGoingNowhere."

Sm of the petitioners in the Const. Petition No.8 challenging #AHA at the presser. @nickopiyo, Fox, Latigo @jjuukoa

Human rights advocates and opposition politicians filed a lawsuit against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act on Tuesday.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act, which President Yoweri Museveni signed into law on February 24, imposes up to a life sentence for homosexuality and criminalizes advocating LGBT rights.

The petitioners include activists Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda, trans activist Julian Pepe Onziema, former Ugandan opposition leader Ogenga Latigo, and Member of Parliament Fox Odoi.

Uganda's anti homosexuality law challenged as unconstitutional today in Ugandan court.Happy to be among the petitioners#rightside of history

The suit argues that the law violates the right to equality before the law under the Ugandan constitution, as well as the right to privacy, freedom of expression, and association. It also notes that parliament lacked a quorum when it voted in favor of the bill on December 20.

LGBT rights advocates have won victories in Uganda's courts in the past. In 2010, a Ugandan court ordered the newspaper Rolling Stone to pay hundreds of dollars in damages to the late activist David Kato and others after it published their names and photos in an issue outing LGBT Ugandans. Kato was beaten to death a few months later.

Today I am #PetitonerNo7 and #IAMGoingNowhere #AHA

Read the Full Petition

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