On March 29, 2020, the government of Uganda raided an LGBTQ+ shelter under the guise of taking COVID-19 prevention measures and arbitrarily arrested 23 people because of their gender identity and sexual orientation. Nineteen of these individuals were denied access to their lawyers for weeks and still remain unlawfully detained at Kitalya Prison today.
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and our local partners have filed a petition to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, seeking a ruling that the Ugandan government illegally targeted and continues to arbitrarily detain these 19 LGBTQ+ people.
United Nations experts have previously expressed concern that Uganda is using COVID-19 emergency powers to target the LGBTQ+ community. Our petition initiates a formal complaint procedure against the government of Uganda and details multiple violations of Uganda’s binding international human rights obligations.