Ugandan MP Sarah Achieng Opendi, who reportedly called for homosexuals to be castrated during a parliamentary debate on the what the west terms the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws has been denied a visa to attend a UN meeting in New York next week.
Opendi expressed “shock” after the US embassy in Kampala rejected her application to travel to the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women , pending “administrative” review.
“Ninety-six per cent of MPs voted in favour of the bill and I am aware of a number of MPs that have gotten visas to the US yet they supported the bill,” said Opendi, the chair of Uganda Women Parliamentary Association.
A US state department spokesperson said they cannot discuss individual visa cases.
In December, the US imposed visa restrictions on hundreds of Ugandan lawmakers and their families over their involvement in the legislation, signed into law by President Yoweri Museveni, which imposes the death penalty or life imprisonment for certain same-sex acts and sentences of up to 20 years for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities”.
Last year, the US and UK denied visas to the parliamentary speaker Anita Among. Activists in Uganda have welcomed the actions.
Agencies
