The Editor of Uganda’s Tabloid, the Rolling Stone which was today banned and punished for publishing lists of names of people it claims are homosexual has vowed to appeal the ruling and to continue publishing more people it claims are homosexuals.
The High Court today made a landmark ruling stopping the newspaper and any media house from publishing lists of alleged homosexuals and fined the young newspaper for listing people as homosexuals.
Justice Vincent Kibuuka Musoke ruled that a Ugandan tabloid must pay each of the three activists who filed suit $650 in damages and court costs. The gay rights activists including Kasha Jacqueline and Pepe Julian Onziema petitioned the court claiming the listing of people endangered them since the paper also called for them to be hanged for being homosexuals.
But while the gay rights activists were celebrating the ruling, Giles Muhame, the editor of the newspaper vowed to defy the court ruling and publish 20 more names of alleged gays in a new edition of the publication this Saturday. The paper first published 100 names and addresses of people it claimed are gay, and then another 10 with their names, pictures and addresses.
In a statement published on his facebook page today, Muhame said “Homos had a short-lived smile today,” and that the rulling endangered press freedom and “perpetuates immorality with impunity.”
“The newspaper will fight homos on different fronts. Our supporters should remain strong –- the agents of the devil shall be defeated,” he wrote. “It’s a matter of time. Sanity must prevail at all costs, Muhame 23, and a recent university graduate said”
Gay rights groups on Tuesday celebrated the ruling as a landmark statement on their rights in a country where homosexuals face a lot of stigma and fresh legal proposals to heavily punish gays, although homosexuality is illegal in Uganda.
Onziema, one of the court petitioners said the ruling has case set a standard for homosexual rights in Africa, especially reducing homosexual hate campaigns in the media.
“The verdict has shown that indeed justice is possible in this world and more so in this country,” the statement read. “We are victims of oppression in so many ways… ,” the Freedom and Roam Uganda, a gay rights organization said in a statement after the ruling.
This is the second ruling to reaffirm rights of homosexuals in Uganda. A High Court Judge Stella Arac in December 2008 ruled against the government after police beat up two lesbians. The Court said every Ugandan, homosexual or not enjoy the same rights and freedom from torture.