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The US may restrict visas issued to Ugandan officials in its latest condemnation of the African country’s enactment of stringent – and highly controversial – anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said that Joe Biden’s White House is “deeply troubled” by the Anti-Homosexuality Act, signed into law by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president, on Monday. Blinken said he was looking to “promote accountability” for Ugandan officials who have violated the rights of LGBTQ+ people, with possible measures including the curtailment of visas. Uganda’s government has faced widespread criticism over the new laws, with the EU, human rights groups and LGBTQ+ organisations all calling for it to be reversed.
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Biden, who has raised the possibility of sanctions against Uganda, has called the law a “tragic violation of universal human rights”. In contrast, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, described the law as “devastating”.
The Ugandan parliamentary speaker, Anita Among, has announced a new law that criminalises “promoting” homosexuality and imposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”. However, the measure appears to have bipartisan disapproval in the US, with the Republican senator Ted Cruz calling the law “horrific and wrong”. Cruz’s remarks drew out some domestic detractors, as fellow Republican lawmakers in Texas have this year promoted bills banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender children.
Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican governor, has overseen the so-called “don’t say gay” law in his state, prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, a ban on people from entering bathrooms other than their sex assigned at birth and a crackdown on children seeing drag artists.
