Saturday Magazine

5 Mar 2014

Protecting Uganda’s “moral values”

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When the east African nation of Uganda first proposed a law that would see homosexuality declared a crime punishable by death, the response from the western world was swiftly critical. The death penalty has now been replaced by life imprisonment, but it has not cooled much of the world’s outcry.

Denmark, Norway, and the World Bank have all cut or diverted aid worth about $110 million, while the US is still reviewing its ties. But if Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati is worried about his country’s fragile economy, he isn’t showing it.

“(The law) is very much worth it because it will protect our values. I think a society that has no moral values is a contradiction to development,” he told Reuters.

Uganda’s Red Pepper tabloid has started outing those it calls Uganda’s “top homos”, with reports of night time house raids and anti-gay harassment on the rise.

In this edition of Saturday Magazine, co-hosted by former Victorian health and education minister Bronwyn Pike, Dr Douglas Pretsell, a board director at the Kaleidoscope Australia Human Rights Foundation, gives his insight into what can and should be done by western nations about this horrific human rights situation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:33:11 — 85.3MB)

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