Stop Ugandan gay death penalty law

From AVAAZ:

Dear friends,

In hours, Uganda could pass a law that could impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for homosexuality. An international outcry shelved this bill last year — we urgently need to ramp up the pressure to press President Museveni to stand up for human rights and stop this brutal law. Sign below, and tell everyone:

The Ugandan Parliament is set to pass a brutal law that may carry the death penalty for homosexuality. If they do, thousands of Ugandans could face execution or life imprisonment — just for being gay.

We’ve helped stop this bill before, and we can do it again. After a massive global outcry last year, Ugandan President Museveni blocked the bill’s progress. But political unrest is mounting in Uganda, and religious extremists in Parliament are hoping confusion and violence in the streets will distract the international community from a second push to pass this hate-filled law. We can show them that the world is still watching.

We have no time to lose. Let’s get one million voices against Uganda’s horrific anti-gay law in the next 24 hours — we’ll deliver it to Uganda’s leaders and key countries. Click here to take action, then forward this email to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/uganda_stop_gay_death_law/?bHFhfab&v=19509

Being gay in Uganda is already dangerous and terrifying. LGBT Ugandans are regularly harassed and beaten, and just last year gay rights activist David Kato (pictured above) was brutally murdered in his own home. Now they are threatened by this draconian law which could impose life imprisonment for people convicted of same-sex relations, and the death penalty for “serial offenders”. Even NGOs working to prevent the spread of HIV can be imprisoned for “promoting homosexuality” under this hate-filled law.

Right now, Uganda is in political turmoil — missing millions of aid money has embroiled the Parliament in scandal. This upheaval has provided religious extremists in Parliament the perfect chance to slip in the shelved anti-gay bill, calling it a “Christmas gift” to Ugandans.

President Museveni backed away from this bill before, after international pressure threatened Uganda’s support. Let’s build a million strong petition to stop the horrific anti-gay law again, and save lives. We only have hours — sign below, then tell friends and family:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/uganda_stop_gay_death_law/?bHFhfab&v=19509

Last time, our international petition condemning the gay death penalty law was delivered to Parliament – spurring a global news story and enough pressure to block the bill for months. When a tabloid newspaper published 100 names, pictures and addresses, of suspected gays and those identified were threatened, Avaaz supported a legal case against the paper and we won! Together we have stood up, time and time again, for Uganda’s gay community — now they need us more than ever.

With hope and determination,

Emma, Iain, Alice, Luis, Ricken, Joseph, Michelle and the whole Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

Kadaga wants anti-gay Bill tabled (Daily Monitor)
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kadaga-wants-anti-gay-Bill-tabled/-/688334/1621218/-/j0h230z/-/index.html

Ugandan Parliament to debate anti-gay bill (AFP)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/15453168/ugandan-parliament-to-debate-anti-gay-bill/

Order paper Tuesday 20th November 2012 (Parliament of Uganda)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/114102346/PARLIAMENT-OF-UGANDA-Order-paper-Tuesday-20th-November-2012

Pulling Out All the Stops to Push an Antigay Bill (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/africa/14uganda.html

Related articles

• Uganda could pass anti-gay law imminently: sign the petition to stop it (newhumanist.org.uk)
• Ugandan MPs drop gay death clause (bbc.co.uk)
• Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill on way to Parliament from Committee (oblogdeeoblogda.me)
• HRC Calls On Faith Community To Fight Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill (towleroad.com)
• Ugandan parliament to debate anti-gay bill (nation.co.ke)
• Uganda Halts British Producer’s Gay Trial (news.sky.com)
• Ugandan Passage of ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill Imminent, Activists Fear (towleroad.com)

Texas death penalty for mentally disabled

This video from the USA is called Mentally Disabled Man Executed in TEXAS – System Failure?

The barbarity of the death penalty was on display last night as the state of Texas executed the second mentally disabled death row prisoner in less than three weeks: here.

AT least 38 people still on death row in The Gambia are at imminent risk of execution following official confirmation that nine other death row inmates were put to death last week: here.

Drop the charges against Gambian journalists: here.

GAMBIAN President Yahya Jammeh’s conditional moratorium on executions of death row prisoners leaves at least 38 people at great risk of execution, Amnesty International said today: here.

Executions in the USA

This video from the USA is called Mentally Disabled Man Executed in TEXAS – System Failure?

By Kate Randall:

Seven US executions scheduled in next 10 days

12 November 2008

Over the next 10 days, seven death row inmates are scheduled to be executed in the United States. Five of these condemned men are in Texas, a state that has carried out 15 of the 31 executions in the US so far this year.

Barring a last-minute reprieve, George Whitaker III will die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening at the Texas execution chamber in Huntsville, north of Houston. The next day, prisoner Denard Manns is set to be put to death.

Three more Texas executions are planned for next week: Eric Cathey on Tuesday, November 18; Rogelio Cannady on Wednesday, November 19; and Robert Hudson on Thursday, November 20.

Two executions are scheduled in other states: Gregory L. Bryant-Bey in Ohio, and Marco Allen Chapman in Kentucky. Chapman would be the first person put to death in Kentucky in 10 years.

The US Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal trial court to consider the case of Troy Davis, a prisoner on death row in George for the 1989 murder of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. The ruling came on a habeas corpus petition filed directly with the Supreme Court on Davis’s behalf: here.

How many innocents executed in the USA? Here.

Afghanistan under watch over increasing executions: here.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has announced that the country’s 4,000 death-row inmates will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, describing their wait to face execution as “undue mental anguish and suffering”: here.

Recognising the importance of the “World Day Against the Death Penalty”, which has taken place on 10 October every year since 2003, the Swedish Presidency of the European Union and the Slovenian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe welcome the celebration of the third European Day Against the Death Penalty: here.

Europeans Press the US to End the Death Penalty: here.

Russia’s Constitutional Court effectively outlawed the death penalty when it declared that a moratorium on capital punishment would remain in force until the nation fully bans executions: here.