Updated: Ugandan newspaper ordered to stop outing gay men
Updated 16.20.
Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone has been ordered to stop outing gay men and lesbians.
The publication, no relation to the US magazine, began publishing the names of gays and lesbians last month. In a previous issue, it carried a banner stating that the individuals should be hanged.
Today, a High Court judge granted a request from Sexual Minorities Uganda for the newspaper to stop outing gay people.
Rolling Stone’s editor Giles Muhame told AFP he intended to continue his campaign against homosexuality.
The newspaper’s latest list contains the photos of 14 men said to be gay, plus their towns and intimate physical details about them. It calls them the “generals” of the gay rights movement.
Mr Muhame told Associated Press that he found the men’s details on a gay networking website. He added that he had not contacted them before publishing their photographs and details.
Today’s edition did not advocate violence, but Mr Muhame wrote that gay men and lesbians were “recruiting and brainwashing unsuspecting kids into gay circles”.
Gay rights groups in the country said at least four people had been attacked as a result of the last list.
Rolling Stone was told last month by the government’s media department to stop publishing as it had not submitted the correct paperwork. It is now free to continue.
Uganda came under worldwide scrutiny last year for its attitudes to gays and lesbians after a lawmaker introduced a bill to strengthen anti-homosexuality laws.
Homosexuality is already illegal in the country but David Bahati’s bill would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment in some cases.
It was thought to have been quietly shelved but Mr Bahati told CNN last week that he was “still pushing that it passes”.
