DEMAND FOR GAY HATE MAIL PROOF

A Ugandan gay rights organisation has called on the country’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity to go public with details of gay hate mail that he claims to have received.

According to the Behind the Mask website (BTM), Victor Juliet Mukasa, chair of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), has said that, if Buturo “is really receiving the mail, let him expose it so that it can be addressed.”

In late June, Buturo, who is virulently anti-gay, claimed that he receives hate mail from gays and lesbians from around the world on a daily basis. He said that this was in response to his fight against homosexuality.

“The mail is from outside not from Uganda and I receive these mails every day. I would not tell what is in those mails because the language used is rotten. The gays claim that they are oppressed, denied rights, undermined and fought,” Buturo was quoted as saying at the time by SAPA.

“The practice is nonsensical. With men and men having relationships and women and women doing the same, we are destroying a generation,” he said.

When asked if he would go public with the e-mails, Buturo told BTM that, “I am not going expose these emails because if I do, then I will be giving the matter a publicity that it does not deserve.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, described in the law as “”carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, and is punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.