According to the Daily Monitor, two businessmen, a teacher, and two students have been arrested in the northern district of Pader under Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act. The five arrested were reportedly suspected by police of promoting homosexuality acts by carrying out covert movements in both primary and secondary schools in the area in order to lure the pupils into the said practice.
Although LGBT activists in Kampala had yet to have time to investigate the circumstances leading to the arrest, co-coordinator Clare Byarugaba of the civil society coalition organized to oppose the anti-LGBT law said that she was troubled as the country's inspector general of police, Kale Kayihura, had given assurances that he will keep police in check and make sure that no one from the LGBT community would get arrested as long as such activities were done out of the public eye. Attempts were made to contact Kayihura regarding the arrest but the inspector general could not be reached immediately for comment.
Buzzfeed said that the arrest followed two days after the country's Foreign Ministry issued a document titled "Statement by the Government of Uganda on the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014." However, the document does not provide new information nor it has responded to concerns about the law that have come into public view. Moreover, the timing was coincidental as the Ugandan government is hashing out its budget. It has been believed that Uganda is concerned that foreign aid might be reduced thanks to the bill in question.
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed recently into law by President Yoweri Museveni, punishes those who engage in same-sex relationships and gets up to a life sentence. The said law also criminalizes "abetting homosexuality," the provision which is being used to suspend operations including the country's largest huma rights group, the Refugee Law Project.
In the statement, the Ugandan government explained that the law has been misinterpreted differently. The statement read, "Our [international] development partners (had) misinterpreted [the law] as a piece of legislation intended to punish and discriminate against people of ‘homosexual orientation.' The intention of the Act is to stop promotion and exhibition of homosexual practices." It added, the "Government of Uganda ... will continue to guarantee equal treatment of all persons on the territory of Uganda" and "will continue to enable civil society and NGOs to operate freely."
