Politics

Court upholds Ugandan govt’s refusal to register LGBT body

Published

2 months ago

March 13, 2024

An LGBT advocacy group’s appeal to force the government to register it was dismissed by a Ugandan court on Tuesday, according to the petitioner’s attorney.

The government’s registrar of companies declined to list Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), which would have allowed the organisation to operate lawfully, citing that the organization’s name was “undesirable.” SMUG therefore filed the initial lawsuit at the High Court of the Nation in 2015.

The verdict is related to an appeal of a lower court decision from 2018 that had been made against SMUG, one of the most well-known LGBT rights organisations in Uganda.

It was further said that the association at the time backed the rights of those whose way of life was outlawed by Ugandan law. Because SMUG had not obtained legal registration, the Ugandan government shut down the organization in 2022.

Uganda passed one of the harshest anti-LGBT laws in the world in May, outlawing the “promotion” of homosexuality. The country has outlawed same-sex partnerships since the time of British colonization.

A lower court’s 2018 decision against SMUG, one of the most well-known LGBT rights organisations in Uganda, was appealed and decided on Tuesday.

“(The) court ruled that since the objectives of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) were actually to promote the rights and welfare of people whose conduct is criminalised under the laws of Uganda, then the registrar was right that the name was undesirable,” SMUG’s lawyer, Edward Semambo, told a journalist.

Legislation against the LGBT community in recent years has been on the rise within the continent, although South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius and the Seychelles all have laws in favour of the community in Africa.

Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

18 mins ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.