Language Switcher

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, E/CN.4/2003/68/Add.1, February 27, 2003: Uganda

1861. On 7 May 2002, the Special Rapporteur sent a joint urgent appeal with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the Chairman-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Susan Nabukenya and Margie Kyeyune, who were said to be detained in Kampala Central police station, on grounds of their alleged sexual orientation. On 26 April 2002, a broadsheet newspaper Red Pepper is said to have reported that on 25 April 2002, the two women had arranged a private “engagement” ceremony presided over by a pastor. They were said to have been arrested on 1 May, reportedly under Paragraph 140 of the Penal Code, which stipulates that “[a]ny person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” is subject to 14 years’ imprisonment. They are said to have been released on 3 May, but were reportedly re-arrested a couple of hours later during the night. [95]

Link to full text of the report: http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/E.CN.4.2003.68.Add.1.En

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1.  Please  note that this case is also mentioned  in the report of the Special  Rapporteur  on violence against women, its causes and consequences,  E/CN.4/2003/75/Add.2,  January 14, 2003, para. 228, and in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, E/CN.4/2003/67/Add.1,  February 20, 2003, para. 610.