20 Ugandans win damages in Covid-era LGBTQ arrests

A Ugandan court awarded damages to 20 people who were arrested, paraded in public and tortured on suspicion of being homosexuals in a decision hailed by rights groups on Monday.

Uganda passed one of the world’s harshest anti-gay laws last year.

But the case relates to the arrest of a group of youth in April 2020—officially on the grounds they were breaking social distancing rules during the Covid pandemic.

The victims’ hands were bound with ropes and they were marched barefoot to a police station as onlookers jeered and threatened them.

The High Court ruled on Friday that the arrest was illegal and ordered local officials to pay 7.5 million shillings ($2,000) in compensation to each individual.

Another court had previously awarded them compensation that they never received.

Uganda’s Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) and Children of the Sun Foundation welcomed the new ruling as it “affirms the humanity of the applicants who have long suffered the effects of indignity and violence.”

“Local leaders and politicians have now been put on notice that if you beat up people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, you pay from your own pockets,” said HRAPF executive director Adrian Jjuuko.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 imposed penalties of up to life in prison for consensual same-sex relations and even death for “aggravated homosexuality.”

The World Bank froze lending to Uganda in the wake of the law, and British charity Open for Business said in October it had cost Uganda between $470 million and $1.66 billion in lost investment, trade, tourism and other benefits.

The government has remained defiant and the legislation has broad support in the conservative, predominantly Christian country, where lawmakers have defended the law as a necessary bulwark against perceived Western immorality.