Activists Protest Uganda’s Death Bill

NEW YORK. The LGBTQI community in the United States stood in solidarity with the Ugandan trans community on Friday. As a result of the Ugandan law criminalizing LGBTQI relationships with the potential for death, a protest was held at the Uganda High Commission. Beyonce Karungi, a Ugandan trans activist who has been threatened and attacked numerous times, believes the bill which is awaiting presidential assent threatens trans minorities who are afraid to associate freely or seek healthcare. Beyonce says transgender people avoid public transportation because of the real danger of mob action. By the bill, a homosexual relationship in Uganda is punishable by up to twenty years in prison, with the death penalty as the maximum punishment. Uganda’s LGBTQI community was thus brought to international attention through the protest. Protesters urged President Museveni’s government to remove laws that impeded their fundamental human rights and criminalized their existence.