Doug Ireland describes a witch-hunt in Uganda, where a publication linked to the president is outing homosexuals and then police and private bigots do the rest:
The police in Jinja, Uganda's second largest city, have "launched an operation to repress the gays, who were on the verge of winning the heterosexual generation of the district," announced the September 7 issue of the popular sex-and-scandal tabloid daily newspaper Red Pepper under the screaming headline, "JINJA COPS HUNT FOR GAYS."
The newspaper called on the public to cooperate in tracking down "sodomites" to prevent them from "polluting" the general population, published the photo of a young gay man who was said to have intimate links to a man already imprisoned in for homosexuality -- which is punishable with life imprisonment in Uganda -- and urged its readers to help track down the young man.
The next day, September 8, under the headline "KAMPALA'S NOTORIOUS LESBIANS UNEARTHED," Red Pepper published the names of 13 alleged lesbians, including two boutique owners, a basketball player, and the daughters of a former member of parliament and of a prominent sheikh. "To rid our motherland of the deadly vice [of lesbianism], we are committed to exposing all the lesbos in the city" of Kampala, the nation's capital, the newspaper proclaimed, while telling its readers to "Send more names"…
Last July, police raided the home of SMUG's [Sexual Minorities-Uganda, which may boast the worst organizational acronym of all time] chairperson, lesbian activist Victor Juliet Mukasa, seizing documents and arresting another lesbian activist. Mukasa said those named in the new outing campaign are "living under unbelieveable fear of being arrested, ostracized by their families, or sacked from their jobs."
