Uganda has announced its plans to introduce the death penalty for homosexuality, stating that the new legislation would address the increase in “unnatural sex” in the country.

Colloquially referred to as the “Kill the Gays” bill, the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed on 20 December 2013, with the death penalty replacing the previous punishment of life imprisonment. President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law on 24 February 2014, however, it was nullified on 1 August 2014 based on a technicality. The bill, which has been supported by the President, could be revived in a matter of weeks when it is reintroduced to parliament for a vote.

“Homosexuality is not natural to Ugandans, but there has been a massive recruitment by gay people in schools, and especially among the youth, where they are promoting the falsehood that people are born like that,” Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister, Simon Lokodo, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Our current penal law is limited. It only criminalises the act. We want it made clear that anyone who is even involved in promotion and recruitment has to be criminalised. Those that do grave acts will be given the death sentence.”

African countries are known for having some of the most discriminatory and strictest laws that govern same-sex relationships. Homosexuality is often considered to be a crime – one that can be punishable by either imprisonment or the death penalty. And under British colonial law, homosexual sex in Uganda carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

After the bill was authorised by President Museveni in 2014, the East African nation faced international criticism. The United States reduced aid, imposed visa restrictions, and cancelled military exercises. The World Bank, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands also suspended or redirected aid.

Lokodo, however, remains optimistic about the bill being passed and said that Uganda was ready for any negative public backlash.

“It is a concern,” he said. “But we are ready. We don’t like blackmailing. Much as we know that this is going to irritate our supporters in budget and governance, we can’t just bend our heads and bow before people who want to impose a culture which is foreign to us.”

Many are concerned that the new legislation may instill even more hate crime in the country. On Friday 4th October 2019, Brian Wasswa, was hacked to death with a gardening hoe in his home in Jinja. It has been the fourth act of violence committed against people in the LGBT community in the last three months in Uganda.

Pepe Julian Onziema, a spokeperson from Sexual Minorities Uganda, said that the last time the law was proposed, it whipped up homophobic sentiment and crimes, expressing that the situation could worsen.

“Hundreds of LGBT+ people have been forced to leave the country as refugees and more will follow if this law is enacted,” Onziema said. “It will criminalise us from even advocated for LGBT+ rights, let alone supporting and protecting sexual minorities.”

In 2011, the advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda and one of the country’s most prominent LGBT rights activist, David Kato, was murdered in suspicious circumstances after being bludgeoned on the head with a hammer. His death came soon after winning a court case over a newspaper that called for homosexuals to be killed. Kato had reported to colleagues that he had a substantial increase in threats and harassment since the victory. Many believed that his sexual orientation and activism was the reason for his death.

For a nation that is not a stranger to civil unrest and violence, the implementation of such a bill could provoke further discord if civilians are targeted due to sexual orientation. When the act was first suggested, Amnesty International called for LGBT and human rights activists to fight for, not only the repeal of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, but also the abolishing of existing anti-gay laws that had seen an escalation of violent attacks against and, harassment of, LGBT people in Uganda.

“The basic human rights to freedom, dignity, and freedom from discrimination must be protected for all Ugandans, at home and abroad,” said the organisation.

L'articolo Uganda Set To Introduce New “Kill The Gays” Law proviene da InsideOver.

Each of their sickening crimes was different – one decapitated his victims, another molested a child before committing murder, a third indulged in torture – but the five men all have something in common: they’ll soon be dead. For the first time in 16 years, the United States federal government will execute those convicted of the most heinous crimes. Ending the US’ informal death penalty moratorium, Attorney General William Barr directed prison authorities to terminate five of the 62 federal death-row inmates, saying that they “owe it to the victims and their families” to follow through with the punishment. The announcement has drawn sharp criticism from legal, humanitarian, and political groups alike, who view the practice as backward and inhumane.

America’s relationship with capital punishment is complicated. The Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty at both state and federal level in 1972, but voted to reinstate the practice in the years that followed. Since 1988, 78 people have been sentenced to death in federal cases – but only three have been executed, the last in 2003. The death penalty is currently legal in 29 states, with around 2,600 awaiting their fate nationwide, though the pace of state-level executions seems to be slowing. 

That the pause in federal killing has come to an end under President Donald Trump is no surprise. For all his policy flip-flopping, Mr Trump has been consistent in his support of capital punishment. In 1989, he took out full-page advertisements in New York City newspapers urging officials to “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY” following the rape of a jogger in Central Park. “If the punishment is strong,” he wrote, “the attacks on innocent people will stop”.

The five youngsters he sought the execution of were later exonerated thanks to cutting edge DNA technology. That the innocent young men could have been killed for a crime they didn’t commit didn’t seem to bother Mr Trump, who never apologised. Such cases of retrospective exoneration fuel the arguments against capital punishment. A team of legal experts at the University of Michigan concluded that at least 4.1% of the modern era’s death-row detainees are innocent. The 2014 study’s disturbing findings were borne out last year, when two inmates awaiting the death penalty were among 68 exonerated of homicide convictions.  

An inherent racism plagues capital punishment, critics also argue. While people of colour account for barely a fifth of the US population, over half of the 62 current death-row inmates are non-white, experts note. “At present, 55% of those on federal death row are Black, Latino, Asian, or Native America,” says Lisa Cylar Barrett, Director of Policy at the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Many on death-row are themselves victims of inadequate representation in their legal proceedings,” she added.

Despite these shortcomings, capital punishment is supported by around half of all Americans. That proportion has been far higher in years gone by – the mid-90s saw nearly 80% in favour of the practice. Since then, public attitudes have shifted significantly, with support reaching a record low in 2016. But that number has ticked back up again, pollsters at the Pew Research Center say, whose 2018 survey found backing to be at 54%. 

The drift in public opinion is often linked to publicity around botched executions, which have thrown the practice’s grisly nature into sharp relief. “I feel my whole body burning,” cried Michael Lee Wilson, a convicted murderer executed by Oklahoma state authorities in 2014. He’d been administered a lethal cocktail of pentobarbital, potassium chloride, and vecuronium bromide. In the same year, rapist and convicted killer Clayton Lockett regained consciousness after his deadly injection. He thrashed around for a full 43 minutes before dying of a heart attack.  

An agonising demise befits their crimes, more strident proponents of the punishment may say, but those carrying out the executions have a solemn duty to conduct their task painlessly. And so the focus now falls on how the government intends to administer its ultimate penalty. Barr’s announcement stated that pentobarbital alone would be used in forthcoming federal executions, following the lead of states like Texas, Missouri and Georgia. But amid widespread shortages of the lethal substance, critics are worried that sub-par suppliers may be tapped for stock.

Particular concern surrounds so-called ‘compounding pharmacies’ – generally smaller institutions which combine, mix or alter drugs, and which aren’t subject to the same approval processes as their larger counterparts. Last year, almost half of convicts executed in Texas – a state that uses compounding pharmacies – complained of a painful burning sensation, reports suggest. An investigation into the suppliers of the pentobarbital used found eight of the 200 had had their licenses revoked or were on probation. Poor pharmacological practice and the use of inferior quality chemicals can directly be linked to botched executions, experts believe.

“Improper compounding and testing procedures may leave fine particles undetectable by the naked eye in the solution, or larger particles that would not be detected by an untrained eye,” said Dr David Waisel, an anaesthesiologist and Harvard Medical School professor. “These particles can cause great irritation to the vein, resulting in extraordinary pain,” he added.

Regardless, America is set to rejoin the dwindling pack of state-sanctioned killers. Most developed nations have turned their backs on execution – the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China are now the practice’s leading proponents. But re-election year is looming for Donald Trump, and he knows a new front in his populist-driven culture war is likely to electrify the campaign. Critics argue the cost of such crass political point scoring can’t be human life, but those who’ve lost loved ones at the hands of the most heinous criminals are unlikely to care. Justice by death has the support of the American masses, however narrowly, and so it is – for the time being – back on the agenda. 

L'articolo The United States Brings Back The Federal Death Penalty proviene da InsideOver.

Shagufta Kousar and Shafqat Masih have been sentenced to death in Pakistan for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages to a Muslim man. The illiterate pair from Gojra, Punjab province were detained and charged with “insulting the Qur’an” and “insulting the Prophet.” They claimed that they were forced into making confessions under duress and have protested their innocence.

Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association said to The Guardian that it was a “worrying trend of Christians accused for derogatory text messages and social media postings.”

He added: “The simple fact that the couple could not possibly have written the blasphemous text messages due to being hyper-illiterate should result in their immediate release. However in Pakistan primary evidence can often be ignored and worse still manipulated by powerful and wealthy people intent on doing malice.”

Yet, their story is not the first of its kind. On 4 Jan 2011, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was assassinated by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Oadri. When further pressed about the crime, Oadri’s response was simply, “This is the punishment for a blasphemer.”

Taseer had been a notable critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws; he spoke fervently about the case of Asia Bibi  – a Christian who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. Bibi was an illiterate farmhand who had been convicted of desecrating the Prophet Mohammed. A row had escalated because her Muslim neighbours, who were incensed that Bibi had drunk water from the same glass as them–because of her faith. After spending eight years on death row, Bibi was eventually freed and moved to Canada earlier this month for her own safety.

Taseer’s assassination was not the only one of that nature to occur. Just a month after his death, another minister who petitioned for the law to be amended was killed in Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet, was shot eight times when two gunmen riddled his car with bullets before leaving leaflets at the scene. The pamphlets called Bhatti a “Christian infidel” and were signed as “Taliban al-Qaida Punjab”.

Under British rule in 1860, a law was enacted which made it a crime to disrupt a religious congregation, trespass on burial grounds, insult religious doctrines or willfully destroy or desecrate a place or an object of worship. It was a crime that was punishable with one year to 10 years in jail–with or without a fine.

In 1947, Pakistan came to existence following the partitioning of India by the British. General Ziaul Haq, the country’s President from 1978 until his death in 1988, changed some of the legislation, which heavily fringed on his regime’s “Islamisation” ideals. During the 1980s, the penal code was re-written for the death penalty to be used as a form of punishment for blasphemy specific to Islam. Furthermore, he re-defined what constituted as blasphemy.

A large majority of Pakistanis support the law with many believing the ruling comes directly from the Koran, oblivious that the act was manmade.

A report by Amnesty International, “As Good As Dead: The impact of blasphemy laws in Pakistan” stated: “The blasphemy laws are incompatible with international human rights law and should be repealed. As an interim measure, leading up to repeal, a number of key safeguards must be introduced. For example, a wide range of people can register complaints with the police, including those who are not direct witnesses to the alleged blasphemy. In some cases, the delays between when the alleged incident occurred and when the case is registered with the police by the complainant raises questions about the credibility of the allegations, especially when coupled with weak evidence against the accused…

“…Many people accused of blasphemy are forced to undergo a gruelling trial due to several factors: vaguely formulated laws, the low standard of evidence required for conviction, and the manner in which allegations are often uncritically accepted by the police, the prosecuting authorities, and even trial court judges, who may themselves also face threats and intimidation.”

Qibla Ayaz, who heads Pakistan’s top advisory body on religious affairs, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), told BBC in February that no government was ready to make changes to the blasphemy law due to fears of a backlash.

L'articolo Pakistan’s Muslim Theocracy, Text Message Leads to the Death Penalty proviene da InsideOver.