The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tirk today called on Ugandan President Joveri Museveni not to sign a law against members of the LGBT community in that country that provides for extremely severe punishments for some homosexual offenses, including death and life imprisonment.
"The adoption of this discriminatory law - possibly the worst of its kind in the world - is deeply disturbing," Turk said in a statement.
Uganda's parliament voted on the disputed law on Tuesday, and it was amended at the last minute to make it draconian. In the original text of the bill, prison sentences were up to a maximum of 10 years, but they were increased.
The adopted version contains the criminal offense of "aggravated homosexuality", which carries the death penalty in the case of sexual relations with persons infected with the HIV virus, minors and members of other vulnerable categories of the population.
According to the law, "aggravated attempted homosexuality" is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and "attempted homosexuality" by up to 10 years in prison.
The committed act of "homosexuality" carries a life sentence, which was prescribed by Uganda's colonial-era penal code for "unnatural sexual acts".
The law was proposed last month by an opposition lawmaker with the aim of punishing what he said was the "promotion, recruitment and financing" of LGBT activities in the East African country where homosexuals are widely denigrated.
President Museveni, who will either veto the bill or sign it, made it clear in a recent speech that he supports the controversial regulation, and blamed unnamed Western countries "for trying to impose their practices on other nations."
Folker Turk assessed that the law, if signed by Museveni, "will turn LGBT people into criminals" based on the very fact of its existence.
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