On The Run: Ugandan Gay Activist Muwazi In Hiding Over Threats To His Life

The never ending persecution against gays and members of the LGBT community in Uganda has put another life in danger.

At a time when very many gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Uganda are being lynched, abused, maimed, jailed and treated to all sorts of inhuman atrocities, we have learnt that Lawrence Muwazi, a renowned LGBT activist, is living in hiding for fear of his life.

Sources reveal that Muwazi, an active member of the LGBT community in Uganda, has been missing for a long time, ever since word circulated that he was being hunted by the police.

It is said that Muwazi was one of the LGBT people who were at one of the popular hangouts in Kampala when the police raided it and arrested several gays and some escaped, although the arrested were later released following pressure from human rights activists within the country and abroad.

However, although he escaped, family members reveal that some neighbours had already filed complaints against Muwazi with local authorities about his dubious behaviours with fellow men, so he was still a wanted man and had to flee for his dear life.

As a result of the complaints filed against him, an arrest warrant was issued by court against Muwazi, to answer charges of engaging in homosexual acts, contrary to Subsection 08 & 05, Section 145 of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014.

Sources from his family reveal that in order to keep alive, Muwazi fled into hiding after learning that he was being hunted in all corners of the country and some insiders within security circles reveal that he could be hiding in Canada, whereto he was helped to flee by some members of the gay community there.

But family members are worried that if Muwazi is indeed hiding in Canada, like it is alleged, then his life is in danger, because he is not only being hunted by the authorities in Uganda but it should be noted that being gay is an abomination in Uganda that is punished by death or life imprisonment because it was outlawed by the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014.

On October 4, 2019, Ugandan LGBTQ human rights activist Brian Wasswa was found fatally wounded and lying in a pool of his own blood, representing the latest casualty in the cultural war against homosexuality in Uganda.

Uganda was not always the extremely homophobic country it has transformed into. It first gained international notoriety in 2009 when David Bahati, a member of the Ugandan parliament whose views were heavily influenced by American evangelicals, introduced the now infamous “Kill the Gays” bill. Under the guise of “protecting the traditional family,” the bill advocated for the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and the imprisonment of anyone “promoting” or failing to report homosexuality. Supporters of the bill equated homosexuality with pedophilia, insinuating that gay adults groomed vulnerable children into homosexuality.

The Ugandan Parliament on Monday passed the Sexual Offenses Bill, which contains a clause to criminalize same-sex relationships. The bill prescribes a five-to-20-year-jail term for anyone guilty of same-sex acts, and awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni. 

For many, the bill sounds like a repeat of a similar law passed in the Ugandan parliament in 2013, which, however, was annulled by the country’s Supreme Court based on technicalities.

The new bill explained

The focus of the new bill is to primarily clamp down on sexual violence in general, increasing punishments for sexual offenders while also boosting the protection of victims during sexual offense trials. The overarching objective of the new piece of legislation is to provide for a broader application of the law while repealing some provisions of the Penal Code Act.