var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};
A top tabloid in Uganda today published a list of people it claims are gay, just one day after President Yoweri Museveni signed his country’s infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law. Red Pepper published the names, addresses, and photographs of some or many of the 200 named LGBT people, under the headline: “EXPOSED! Uganda’s 200 Top Homos Named.”
WATCH: President Of Uganda Says Gay People Are ‘Disgusting’
“Two of the four front-page photos are of well-known LGBT rights activists,” notes Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin, adding that the “other two photos are of popular cultural figures in Uganda, Fr. Anthony Musaala and a hip-hop performer who goes by the stage name of Keko.”
Burroway adds that “Red Pepper’s outing campaign this time takes up three interior pages with more names and photos of LGBT Ugandans. Some of the names and photos are well-known: Sexual Minorities Uganda executive director Frank Mugisha, transgender rights activist Pepe Julian Onziema, and Freedom and Roam Uganda executive director Jacqueline Kasha. Onziema told the Associated Press that he knew of six arrests since Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act yesterday. Police have confirmed two.
But the overwhelming number of those named by Red Pepper are private citizens and not well-known activists or celebrities. The names listed are often those of ordinary salespeople, shopkeepers, and ordinary employees of larger firms. The evidence for their alleged homosexuality is not given, and many, in fact, may not be gay or transgender.
Â
#AHBUganda: The media witch hunt is back. 200 Top Homos exposed in redpepper pic.twitter.com/sbofQxvSyM
— Kasha Jacqueline (@KashaJacqueline) February 25, 2014
#AHBUganda:Suspected Gay couple attacked.1 is dead.this is so terrible.I weep for my community.Effected of Media pic.twitter.com/IM85QSSAN5
— Kasha Jacqueline (@KashaJacqueline) February 25, 2014
Last year, Red Pepper, in another vile assault on the LGBT community, published an article titled, “Top Uganda Gay Recruiters Busted” — a heinous attack suggesting gay people “recruit†others into homosexuality, which is a decades-old lie planted by the anti-gay right.
In November of 2010, another Uganda tabloid, Rolling Stone, (no relation to the iconic U.S. magazine and now reportedly closed,) published a front-page article titled, “100 Pictures Uganda’s Top Homos Leak.” Below the front page title, apparently, was a photo of Uganda’s LGBT activist David Kato, who was subsequently murdered just two months later.
The Huffington Post adds that “Red Pepper is infamous for its homophobic copy, which has included the headlines: ‘This gay monster raped boys in school but failed to bonk wife‘, ‘Smoked out! Uganda Cranes boss nabbed sodomising players.‘”
The New Civil Rights Movement reported on that last story in 2012, the shocking and likely photoshopped cover can be seen here.
Image via Twitter