Ugandan citizens, especially Gen Zs, reading from a script drafted by their Kenyan counterparts, are gearing up for a march to parliament in protest over growing corruption.
But the integration of the fight for homosexuality rights has potential to hinder the anti-graft crusade given the country’s conservative stance on LGBTQI+ rights.
Activists are mobilizing, largely online, for the march to parliament but the hashtag #FightforGayRights is steadily gaining traction within the broader one for the campaign, #March2Parliament. The push for the rights of gays may soon shroud the whole anti-corruption protest plan in controversy.
The activists behind the fight for gay rights are calling for the repeal of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), considered by the West as one of the harshest in the world, but lauded by many in conservative Uganda.
Assented to by President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023, the anti-gay law earned Uganda backlash from the West. Uganda lost out on the AGOA trade deal for refusing to repeal the law criminalizing homosexual acts while Uganda Prisons boss Johnson Byabashaija was sanctioned over allegations of forceful examinations of homos.
Speaker Anita Among’s US visa was cancelled while the Joe Biden administration announced cuts to budget support for key sectors like health. The World Bank also announced tough measures including a funding freeze to try and force the Museveni administration to reconsider its stance on homosexuality rights in the country.
Pro-government activists have begun dismissing the planned march to parliament as being geared towards promoting a gay agenda. This is after gay rights activists have started promoting respect of homosexual rights and the repeal of the Anti-Homosexuality Act within the broader March to Parliament campaign.
As The Witness Uganda has previously reported, when corruption allegations against Parliament came up, Speaker Anita Among quickly swept them under the carpet, dismissing them as being promoted by ‘bum-shafters.’
President Yoweri Museveni defended her after quizzing her on her source of funds. The speaker has since been sanctioned by both the UK and the US. She has denied owning even a pussy cat in the UK, and once more blamed the sanctions on her anti-gay stance.
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Besides brandishing the anti-homo flag and hiding behind it to fend off criticism over allegations of corruption at Parliament, Speaker Anita Among also seems to relieved that the state has come up to slap charges of hate speech and sharing malicious information against her critics.
One of the speaker’s victims is former RCC Anderson Burora whose sins include calling Anita Among ‘corrupt, murderer, kidnapper and torturer.’
But internal affairs minister Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire has said demanding accountability is not hate speech.Back to the planned march to parliament, while Otafiire has urged Ugandans to come out and demand accountability, police – which he supervises as minister – has warned Gen Zs against the march and any other protests.