HIV+ Ugandan Refugee Stays

posted: 11/02/2011

A Ugandan refugee with HIV managed to avoid being deported by refusing to board the plane at Heathrow early this week. Jamal Ali Said – who is HIV positive, claims he's gay and has lived in the UK for fifteen years – was due to be sent back to Uganda on Monday evening.

Jamal says he is at serious risk of persecution - potentially murder. His deportation was arranged barely two weeks after the Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was brutally murdered, following a media campaign there that urged Ugandans to kill gay people.

Speaking from Campsfield detention centre in Oxfordshire, Jamal said he was "very frightened" because of "how they treat you in Uganda if you have HIV, if you are a gay man."

Deportation, despite Supreme Court ruling

According to Jamal’s lawyer, his application for refugee protection was refused, before the Supreme Court made a landmark decision for gay asylum seekers last year. The Supreme Court ruled that gay asylum seekers should be granted refugee status if being sent home would mean they would be forced to hide their sexuality – having to hide your sexuality breaches your human right to live a private life.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Jamal’s solicitor made a fresh application for asylum quoting the Supreme Court, but this was also refused.

Credit where credit's due - we have to thank the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Lady Hale (a former Manchester barrister and university law lecturer), for her wisdom and championing of the human rights of refused gay asylum seekers. In a recent BBC4 documentary on the Supreme Court, she talked about this landmark case, the different life perspectives women bring to the courts as judges, and her persuasion of the other judges to agree with her pioneering judgement. 

You can read about this recent BBC4 programme 'Justice Makers' and watch some clips here.  

Uganda Parliament and death for HIV sex 

Homosexuality is punishable by up to 14 years in prison in Uganda, but a bill before the parliament would impose the death penalty on people with HIV who have sex.

Jamal is being held in Brook House Immigration Centre, near Heathrow, while the UK Border Agency decides whether to attempt to deport him again.
 

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French, Swahili, Shona, Luganda, Portuguese Speakers

posted: 08/06/2010

The Black Health Agency in Manchester wants helpline advisers for the national African AIDS Helpline that it provides.You must speak English and one (or more) of these languages fluently.
 

The work is part time and a minimum of 4 hours and a maximum of 8 hours per week (Thursdays) and the pay is £8.25 per hour. The work will be irregular – you would only be asked to work when regular staff are absent because of holiday, sickness, at meetings or in training.  The law says you must have permission to work in the UK.
 

You would provide a comprehensive range of over the telephone advice and information on Sexual Health, HIV and AIDS, as well information about specialist HIV testing, treatment and support services available to Africans all over England.
 

Support Africans with HIV
You will provide emotional support to people living with HIV as well as advice and information to people affected by HIV/AIDS (e.g. family members, partners and carers of those living with HIV).
You must be able to deal with these calls sensitively, in a non-judgemental way and appropriately. You must have an understanding and knowledge of HIV/AIDS and related issues facing African people with HIV/AIDS.
 

More Information

For an informal chat, or more information, please call Gertrude Wafula on 0161 232 5393.
For an application pack, please contact Melanie Lathrope on 0845 450 4247 or email her  
Closing date for applications is Friday 18th June 2010.
 

African AIDS Helpline

Sanctions for Ugandan legal HIV-phobia?

posted: 21/04/2010

Plans are being made to stop the Ugandan MP from entering the UK, who is pushing a proposed law that would mean the death penalty for gay men with HIV who have sex.
 

Civil servants in the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development, and the UK Border Agency are planning to cancel the UK travel visa of born-again Christian MP David Bahati. They want him to drop his law that would see consenting adults who have gay sex imprisoned for life, and which would impose the death penalty on those with HIV – offences called "aggravated homosexuality".
 

The bill also proposes the death penalty for those having gay sex with anyone under the age of 18, with someone disabled or what the legislation describes as "serial offenders". It also calls for life prison sentences for those "promoting homosexuality", which could come to mean human rights groups or those who fail to inform on a gay couple.
 

Expect a Diplomatic Incident
One senior British government source said the issue could turn into a "major diplomatic incident if the Ugandans do not back down". President Barack Obama has already described the legislation as odious. The British government's views have been conveyed to Uganda but officials have not received a clear sense of whether the legislature will pass the bill into law. Ugandan government officials appear to be using stalling tactics, suggesting it will not come to a vote until 2011, deflecting pressure from a government that could change in the forthcoming general election.
 

Bahati submitted a private member's bill to the Ugandan parliament last year arguing that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. Gay sex is already illegal in Uganda but backbenchers there are pushing for more draconian punishment by preying on fears that homosexuals are "recruiting" children at schools. Though observers believe President Yoweri Museveni was beaten back by the level of international opprobrium, a march against homosexuality in Uganda last month attracted 2,000 supporters.
 

African anti-gay wave
The British government is concerned by a wave of anti-gay sentiment sweeping Africa that has also put pressure on homosexual people in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Nigeria.

Sanctions on the way
Besides cancelling the travel visa of the backbencher, other options considered include blocking aid to the Ugandan government. However it seems the government has switched to blocking individuals’ visas, amidst signs that threats to withhold aid could backfire. Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe, chairman of the Malawi Council of Churches, has accused western donors of trying to use aid as a lever to force Malawi to legalise homosexuality. British officials have already cancelled the visas of those involved in the Kenyan election riots and members of the Zimbabwean government.
 

Source
 

500,000 petition against Uganda's anti-gay HIV-hate law

posted: 09/03/2010

Half a million people signed a petition delivered to the Ugandan Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi on March 1 opposing the proposed law that would jail gays for life and punish men with HIV with the death penalty.
The petition came from HIV-positive Anglican priest, Canon Gideon Byamugisha, along with other religious leaders and HIV activists, including former Anglican Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo.

"In the interests of safer, healthier, more peaceful, and more prosperous lives for all Ugandans; we as Aids Service Providers, pastors and spiritual mentors of all Ugandans are calling for the withdrawal of this Bill from Parliament," the petition read in part. "We are united in opposing this Bill because if passed into law it threatens the health, peace and well being of Ugandan citizens and goes against the Ugandan Constitution."

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 would
• jail for life anyone convicted of the ‘offense’ of homosexuality,
• punish ‘aggravated homosexuality’ – which means anyone who is HIV-positive and has gay sex -- with the death penalty,
• forbid the ‘promotion of homosexuality,’
• lock up gay-rights campaigners, and
• jail people in positions of authority for up to three years for failing to report within 24 hours all LGBT people or sympathisers they know.

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Our other reports

UN to Uganda - Scrap Anti-Gay Laws

posted: 18/01/2010

The UN's top human rights official has called on Uganda to drop its proposed anti-homosexuality law that would impose the death penalty on gay and lesbian people with HIV, among others. Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, joined a growing chorus condemning the bill as discriminatory and called for homosexuality to be decriminalised in the country.
 

"The bill proposes draconian punishments for people alleged to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered – namely life imprisonment, or in some cases, the death penalty," she said. "To criminalise people on the basis of colour or gender is now unthinkable in most countries. The same should apply to an individual's sexual orientation."
 

Bill fails human rights standards
Pillay called on the Ugandan ¬government to put the draft bill on hold because it breaches international human rights standards. ¬Pillay said Uganda had a generally "good track record" of co-operating with human rights mechanisms but the bill "threatens to seriously damage the country's reputation in the international arena".
The UN said Uganda's parliament may discuss the bill as early as this week. It has provoked criticism from western governments and gay rights groups and protests in London, New York and Washington.
 

President worries about threat to international aid

President Museveni has recently begun distancing himself from the bill. In his first public comments on the issue, he told a meeting of his ruling party that their handling of the bill "must take into account our foreign policy interests".
He said: "When I was at the Commonwealth conference, what was [the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper] talking about? The gays. UK prime minister Gordon Brown ... what was he talking about? The gays."
Nsaba Buturo, the ethics and integrity minister, has said a revised law would now probably limit the maximum penalty for gay people with HIV to life in prison rather than execution.
 

Existing anti-gay law has 14 year jail penalty
Homosexual acts are already punishable by up to 14 years in jail in Uganda. The private member's bill, tabled last year, would raise that penalty to life in prison. And it proposes the death penalty for a new offence of "aggravated homosexuality" – defined as when one of the participants is a minor, or HIV-positive, or a "serial offender".
 

Sneaks and harassers charter
It could also lead to a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone failing to report within 24 hours the identities of any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person.
A local independent newspaper, the Daily Monitor, quoted parliament's speaker as saying the legislative body would debate the bill despite President Museveni's call for more talks. Edward Ssekandi said: "There is no way we can be intimidated by remarks from the president to stop this bill."
 

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