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Two girls arrested in Arua City [northwestern Uganda] for allegedly exhibiting affection in public were launched on police bond, human rights defenders confirmed. Their case has reignited considerations just a few deepening sample of community vigilantism and say enforcement of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023.
The girls had been detained on 18 February after neighbours in Ayivu West Division reported them for “extraordinary and peculiar acts”. Police spokesperson Josephine Angucia told media shops that officers searched the girls’s say however recovered “nothing.”
No matter the absence of physical evidence, they had been held at Ayivu West Division on suspicion of behavior in violation of Portion 2(1)(2) of the Act [prohibiting same-sex sexual acts], which carries a maximum penalty of lifestyles imprisonment.
Neighborhood vigilantism and police complicity.
Interviews with frontline human rights defenders demonstrate a tense image of organised community surveillance preceding the arrest.
John Grace, coordinator of the Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, described how the community had been actively monitoring the girls’s say:
“In some conditions the do privacy is overruled, some will spin so some distance as entering folks’s bedrooms making an are trying to score those suspected in the act. It only ideal took role that the native newspaper became in a role to exhaust this relate narrative. In every other case, there are very many unwritten stories cherish that that generally die away. In some conditions, folks even undoubtedly conclude up getting killed and we ideal don’t score notified.”
Edward Mwebaza, Government Director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Discussion board (HRAPF), confirmed that the concern became escalated by Arua’s Assistant Resident District Commissioner, Job Richard Matua.
When the arrest became reported in native media, Matua publicly infamous it, claiming that native leaders had been “making ready them for rehabilitation and spiritual intercession as well to courts of law”. He amplified anti-LGBTIQ sentiment in an net switch with a Pentecostal pastor. Mwebaza stated this is no longer an isolated incident. A 2024 attack on HRAPF paralegals forced the organisation to evacuate workers.
Neighborhood organising by plot of native council structures has persistently focused LGBTIQ folks. Arua, in Uganda’s West Nile say, is identified for its deeply conservative social and non secular ambiance, the do light merely norms are actively upheld by each Christian and Muslim communities.
Sample of persecution: no evidence, yet payments filed
Human rights defenders contain documented a habitual sample: arrests in accordance with suspicion or community stress, without corroborating evidence.
Mwebaza became recount in his review:
“In Uganda, folks ideal price. As long as they suspect, they price. There’s no need for evidence.”
He successfully-known that nearly all conditions his organisation handles aren’t without extend brushed apart “for desire of prosecution”.
Grace described the emboldening invent of the 2023 Act on each community actors and police:
Glimpse Moreover
“The persecution is undoubtedly the non-honest, non-say actors taking justice into their fingers.
He added that in some conditions, communities contain attempted to storm police stations or shatter detainees.The 2 girls, each of their early twenties, now face social ostracism, family rejection, and capacity displacement.
“They would possibly be able to now no longer quit of their say. Their chums and family are going to be distant from them”, stated John Grace of the Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium.
The arrests triggered critical public criticism on social media, with many Ugandans questioning police priorities at a time when violent crime — alongside side machete attacks and robberies — has elevated across Arua and completely different facets of the nation. Many online commentators questioned why law enforcement sources had been directed at two consenting adults pretty than at documented public security threats.
Broader context and requires reform
The arrests method as the Anti-Homosexuality Act stays in force pending a Supreme Court docket attraction, following a Constitutional Court docket ruling that struck down some provisions however upheld the core criminalisation. Mwebaza expressed relate over fresh court docket judgments that he stated mediate a “moralistic method” pretty than constitutional prognosis. “The law continues to be a extraordinarily serious stumbling block for even conversations. Whilst you commence talking about violations, then folks throw the law at you.”
Grace known as for structural switch previous honest reform:“The law needs to spin. Portion of the method forward encompass removal of the law. Then the long-length of time alternate choices encompass cultural revisions, non secular reform and rising consciousness.”
Human rights organisations proceed to show screen the safety of the 2 girls and are providing referrals for psychosocial pork up.
76crimes.com, https://76crimes.com/2026/03/09/uganda-releases-two-girls-arrested-for-kissing/
