The latest recommendation suggests the president is trying to water down the proposed anti-homosexuality law, which would be one of the strictest in the world.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has asked lawmakers to clarify in the proposed anti-homosexuality law that it is not a criminal offense to identify as merely gay, as part of an effort to water down a bill that has been passed internationally has been convicted.
Last month, lawmakers in the East African country overwhelmingly approved the proposed legislation, possibly one of the world’s toughest anti-LGBTQ laws, and sent it to the president for approval.
The planned law criminalizes a wide range of homosexual activity, including promoting or inciting the lifestyle, and imposes severe penalties, including the death penalty for so-called aggravated homosexuality.
The law has been widely criticized by human rights defenders, Western governments and businesses.
Thomas Tayebwa, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, read to lawmakers a letter written by Museveni to the Speaker of Parliament on Tuesday, outlining why he was returning the bill and what changes he wanted.
In the letter, Museveni said it should be clear and distinguish between someone who professes to have a homosexual lifestyle and someone who actually commits homosexual acts.
“The proposed law should be clear so that what is considered punishable is not the state of someone with a deviant inclination, but rather the actions of someone acting on that deviant,” Museveni wrote in the letter.
“The bill should be reviewed and include a provision that clearly states…a person believed or suspected or suspected to be homosexual who has not committed a sexual act with another person of the same sex is not committing a criminal offence. “
He also asked lawmakers to remove provisions requiring citizens to report homosexual acts as it would create “constitutional challenges” and also be a source of conflict in society.
Museveni last week advised lawmakers to “examine the issue of rehabilitation” and make changes to the bill. The country’s deputy attorney general has recommended removing the mandatory death penalty from the law as well.
Tayebwa referred the bill back to the parliament’s legal affairs committee, which will process and report on it and return it to the full House for further debate and approval.
Once it is passed again by the full House, it will be sent back to the president for approval.
Homosexuality is already illegal in the East African country under a colonial-era law that criminalizes sexual acts “against the order of nature”. The penalty for that crime is life imprisonment.