Ugandan Red Pepper newspaper prints gay "hit list"

Gay “Hit List” Published in Ugandan Tabloid

Gay “Hit List” Published in Ugandan Tabloid

Outward has moved! You can find new stories here.
Outward
Expanding the LGBTQ Conversation
Feb. 25 2014 3:18 PM

Yep, Gays Are Now Open Targets in Uganda

140225_out_redpeppercover
Cover of Red Pepper. (Image blurred by Slate.)

Red Pepper.

In my post on Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s approval of that country’s atrocious Anti-Homosexuality Act yesterday, I wrote that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we started seeing Russian-style vigilante attacks on LGBTQ people (or people presumed to be LGBTQ) as a result. I can grimly report that we are one step closer to that situation today: According to the Guardian, the Ugandan tabloid Red Pepper just published the names and, in some cases, photos of 200 “top homosexuals,” including activists, artists, and even a priest. As one colleague put it this morning, the action resembles nothing so much as the public printing of a “hit list”—after all, a similar “exposé” in 2011 is widely believed to have contributed to the murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato.

For more information on the individuals named this time, check out Jim Burroway’s breakdown over at Box Turtle Bulletin. And if you can bear to spend some time inside the head of the man who approved this law, watch this CNN interview in which Museveni explains why homosexuality is so “disgusting.”  

J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate associate editor and the editor of Outward. He covers life, culture, and LGBTQ issues.