Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill May Be Up Tomorrow
May 10, 2011 Leave a comment
via Warren Throckmorton:
UPDATE: (noon, 5/10) – I just spoke with Helen Kawesa, Public Relations Manager of Uganda’s Parliament. She told me that Stephen Tashobya, Chair of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee completed his report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. When I asked her if the AHB would be on Wednesday’s agenda, she said,
All indications show that it should be coming up tomorrow. The committee has finalized its reports so they are ready to table it tomorrow and discuss it in the House.
She said one bill passed today which moved the Company and Marriage and Divorce bills to tomorrow as well. Regarding the duration of tomorrow’s session, Kawesa added, ”if there is business that they have to conclude they will push it to late, eight or nine o’clock.”
Committee suggests changes in the bill
Not long after speaking with Ms. Kawesa, I spoke with AHB author David Bahati who told me that the death penalty had been removed from the bill in the committee report. He said that the plank criminalizing “attempted homosexuality” had been removed, with penalties for same-sex intimacy reduced from the current life sentence, although he said he did not know what the new penalties were. Committee chair Tashobya was not available for comment.
