Following the publishing of a list of 100 gays by a Ugandan newspaper — along with a headline reading “Hang Them” — the country’s High Court has ordered an injunction against the publication, prohibiting it from reporting additional names.
From the Associated Press:
Justice Kibuuka Musoke on Monday ordered Uganda’s Rolling Stone magazine to pay $650 in damages and court costs for each of the three activists who sued the magazine.
The three Ugandan activists were on the list of 100 names originally published by the magazine in October. The front-page article said gays had plans to recruit one million innocent children by 2012 (as recent transcripts published by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council reveal, fears of a similar “agenda” by evangelical Charles McVety appeared last spring on the cover of The Globe and Mail).
CBC reports that the High Court’s decision cites a Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench ruling from 2002.
The Court of Queen’s Bench ruling upheld an earlier decision by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission in its case against Hugh Owens, who published an ad in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix.
The advertisement showed four scriptural passages next to an image of two stick men holding hands. The two stick men are in a circle with a line through it.
The human rights commission ordered Owens to pay $1,500 to each of three complainants, and the Court of Queen’s Bench upheld that decision.
Rolling Stone has announced that it plans to appeal the ruling.
In February, Xtra reported the story of Sam Ganafa, the leader of one of Uganda’s main gay rights organizations, who had been outed repeatedly by tabloids as far back in 2005.
Ganafa has been outed many times by newspapers in Uganda that delight in identifying people’s homosexuality against their will. His most recent outing happened less than two months ago, in Kampala’s Red Pepper tabloid.
The paper gleefully announced: “Red Pepper has landed on a list of city tycoons and professionals who dig deep into their wallets to have the stinking vice (of homosexuality) maintained in Ugandan society.”
Ganafa was first outed in 2005, when a different paper — The Mirror — printed his first name and place of employment.
For more, see Xtra‘s reports from Uganda by Kaj Hasselriis.
Why you can trust Xtra
