Frank Mugisha, Uganda’s most prominent LGBTQ rights activist, has been fighting for the rights of his community for over two decades. However, since coming out as gay, Mugisha’s work has become increasingly dangerous, and he has received death threats regularly. The passage of a bill that would criminalize even identifying as LGBTQ poses a significant threat to the community. Mugisha could face up to 20 years in prison under a provision that punishes the “promotion” of homosexuality.
The bill also imposes the death penalty for so-called aggravated homosexuality, which includes having gay sex while HIV-positive. Mugisha feels a responsibility to fight back on behalf of LGBTQ Ugandans, many of whom have fled their homes or left the country since the bill’s passing. “I guess I am going to be in trouble a lot because I am not going to stop,” Mugisha said.
Mugisha’s advocacy work began in 2007 when he took over leadership of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), an advocacy group he had earlier joined as an activist. He has since seen a hardening of anti-LGBTQ views, which he attributes to campaigning by ultra-conservative Christian groups, some from the United States. Same-sex relations were first criminalized in Uganda under British colonial rule.
Mugisha’s friend and colleague David Kato was bludgeoned to death in 2011, months after a local newspaper printed the names, photographs, and addresses of him and others in the LGBTQ community and called for them to be hanged. Although the police said the murder was unconnected to his sexual identity, Mugisha is certain that it was.
Mugisha considered leaving Uganda then, but he stayed and led the campaign against a law enacted in 2014 that stiffened penalties for same-sex relations. That law was ultimately voided by the courts on procedural grounds, and Mugisha is hoping for a similar outcome this time. “Many people are going to…challenge this law,” he said. “Looking at this legislation, I do not think it will survive.”
Despite the dangers he faces, Mugisha will continue to fight for the rights of Uganda’s LGBTQ community. As he said, “The Ugandan population has been radicalized to fear and hate homosexuals…I guess I am going to be in trouble a lot because I am not going to stop.”