Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) is an umbrella non-governmental organization based in
Kampala
Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
, Uganda.
In August 2022 SMUG was ordered by the Ugandan government to immediately shut down.
Organisation
Founders included
Victor Mukasa and
Sylvia Tamale
Sylvia Rosila Tamale is a Ugandan academic, and human rights activist in Uganda. She was the first female dean in the Law Faculty at Makerere University, Uganda.
Marriage
She is married to Joe Oloka-Onyango a professor of law at Makerere Univ ...
. Executive director
Frank Mugisha
Frank Mugisha (born 17 June 1979) is a Ugandan LGBT advocate and Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), who has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize 2011 for his activism. Mugisha is one o ...
and deputy director
Pepe Julian Onziema both took office in 2007. Advocacy officer
David Kato
David Kato Kisule ( – 26 January 2011) was a Ugandan teacher and LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement and described as "Uganda's first openly gay man". He served as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities ...
was the advocacy and litigation officer until his murder in January 2011. SMUG advocates for the protection and promotion of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans.
A network composed of several member organizations was founded in 2004:
* Icebreakers Uganda, concerned with LGBT research and youth issues.
*
Freedom & Roam Uganda, dedicated to the rights of lesbian, transgender, and intersex women
* Spectrum Uganda, focused on the health and well-being of LGBT people in Uganda (co-founded by
John "Longjones" Abdallah Wambere)
*Transgender Initiative Uganda addresses transgender issues.
History
Victor Mukasa, a
trans man
A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that incl ...
activist, founded Sexual Minorities Uganda on 3 March 2004 in Kampala at the Kaival restaurant and Internet cafe. The earliest members included
Val Kalende. Kamuhangire.E and David Kato, who were among the first board members. Members of SMUG achieved controversy through their activism and legal troubles for much of the organization's history, and the profile of the organization in the later-2000s due to the rise of homophobic populism in the country and the introduction of the
Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014 was an act passed by the Parliament of Uganda on 20 December 2013, which prohibited sexual relations between persons of the same sex. The act was previously called the "Kill the Gays bill" in the western mainst ...
in the
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
by
David Bahati
David Bahati (born 8 June 1973) is a Ugandan accountant and politician. He is the Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives in the Cabinet of Uganda. He was appointed to that position in a cabinet reshuffle on 9 June 2021. He was ...
.
The Ugandan newspaper ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', a publication unrelated to the American magazine of the same name, which rejected the Ugandan paper and called its actions as "horrific", published a gallery of "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak" and stated "Hang Them".
["Gays in Uganda say they're living in fear"]
Godfrey Olukya & Jason Straziuso, ''NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
'', Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
["Ugandan paper calls for gay people to be hanged"]
Xan Rice, guardian.co.uk
TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...
, 21 October 2010 In response, four members of SMUG whose faces appeared in the magazine,
David Kato Kisule,
Kasha Nabagesera
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (also known as Jacqueline Kasha) (born 1980) is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist and the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organization Freedom & Roam Uganda (FARUG). She received the Martin Ennals Award ...
,
Nabirye Mariam, and Pepe Julian Onziema "Patience", filed a petition with the High Court seeking to force the paper to cease distribution of the article. The court granted the petition on 2 November 2010, effectively ending the publication of Ugandan ''Rolling Stone''.
["Uganda court orders anti-gay paper to shut"]
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
, 2 November 2010["Judge orders Ugandan paper to stop publishing 'gay lists'"]
''CNN International
CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inter ...
'', 2 November 2010
On 26 January 2011, Kato, whose picture had been featured on the cover of the issue of ''Rolling Stone'' in question, was assaulted in his home in
Mukono Town
Mukono Town is a municipality in Mukono District in the Central Region of Uganda. The town is administered by the Mukono Town Council. The district headquarters are located in this town.
Location
Mukono Municipality is 21 km east of ...
by his acquaintance Sidney Nsubuga Enoch, 22, who hit him twice in the head with a hammer found in Kato's bathroom before fleeing on foot. The apparent motive was a disagreement about sexual services and robbery. Kato died en route to the Kawolo Hospital. The murder was decried by
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
and senior Africa researcher Maria Burnett said that "David Kato's death is a tragic loss to the human rights community".
On 15 September 2011, SMUG's executive director Frank Mugisha was named the recipient of the annual
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, was created by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in 1984, now known as the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights to honour individuals around the world who have shown great courage and have made a significant contr ...
for his activism. Mugisha also received the
Rafto Prize for Human Rights on behalf of SMUG on 6 September 2011.
In 2012,
[ SMUG and several Ugandans, including Onziema, Mukasa, and Mugisha, together with the ]Center for Constitutional Rights
The Center for Constitutional Rights[The Center for Constitutional Rights](_blank)
(CCR) is a U.S. Federal District Court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...
using the Alien Tort Statute
The Alien Tort Statute ( codified in 1948 as ; ATS), also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), is a section in the United States Code that gives federal courts jurisdiction over lawsuits filed by foreign nationals for torts committed in vi ...
to sue American evangelist Scott Lively
Scott Douglas Lively (born December 14, 1957) is an American activist, author, and attorney, who is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, an anti-LGBT group based in Temecula, California. He was also a cofounder of Latvia-based group Watch ...
for crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
for his work on the Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Lively's work has been described as inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians and as "conduct ... actively trying to harm and deprive other people of their rights". In August 2013, Judge Michael A. Ponsor ruled that the plaintiffs were on solid ground under international and federal law in rejecting a jurisdictional challenge to the suit. He also ruled that First Amendment defenses for Lively's conduct were premature.
In August 2022 SMUG was ordered by the Ugandan government to immediately shut down. The government said that SMUG had failed to properly register its name with the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations. The NGO Bureau issued a statement saying that SMUG's registration attempt in 2012 was rejected because its full name was deemed "undesirable". In response to the shutdown order, executive director Frank Mugisha called it "a clear witch hunt rooted in systematic homophobia, fuelled by anti-gay and anti-gender movements."
See also
*List of LGBT rights organizations
This is a list of LGBT rights organizations around the world. For social and support groups or organizations affiliated with mainstream religious organizations, please see ''List of LGBT-related organizations and conferences''. For organizations ...
References
{{Reflist, 2
External links
Sexual Minorities Uganda
- official website
Sexual Minorities Uganda
- official website (USA office)
Sexual Minorities Uganda
- Instagram
* Sexual Minorities Uganda
The Case Against Scott Lively
LGBT political advocacy groups in Uganda
Organizations established in 2004
2004 establishments in Uganda
Organizations that support LGBT people