Uganda is a country notorious for its hostility towards the LGBTIQ community. Numerous stories and accounts of institutionalised discrimination and violence towards queer people have framed the nation’s reputation as unsafe for LGBTIQ people.

In a defiant and bold move, presidential candidate Patrick Amama Mbabazi has announced that he is “opposed to homophobia” in an interview with NBS television.

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LGBT activist Frank Mugisha has praised Mr Mbabazi, declaring his non-discriminatory stance “history in the making”.

For the first time in history, a Ugandan presidential candidate backs #gayrights http://t.co/3wFcDRWTeB #LGBTI pic.twitter.com/3wEs6CA6AR

— One Love, All Equal (@OneLoveAllEqual) July 17, 2015

In 2013, Uganda passed a bill that would see acts of homosexuality punished by life imprisonment. The original structure of the law had proposed the death penalty, though it was dropped after local and international outrage. The Constitutional Court of Uganda declared the law invalid in 2014 on procedural grounds.

OIP Staff