Group Growing up in Iowa, I was often judged solely on appearance. In stores, strangers would make karate-chop gestures at me, inspired by the popular TV series Kung Fu.
When I played quarterback for my high school team, opponents were not above slamming me to the dirt and then piling on racial slurs. These incidents embarrassed me and made me self-conscious.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 28, 2014 Contact: Carrie Adams (202) 225-2661 Washington, D.C.— Congresswoman Barbara Lee released the following statement regarding the future of US relations with Uganda in light of discriminatory, anti-LGBT legislation signed into Ugandan law this week: “I am extremely concerned by the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality legislation in Uganda. This law is deeply cruel and goes against evidence-based science.
The world’s nations have begun talks ahead of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in 2016. This is a time of increasing high-level calls for drug policy reform and a sense that policies long dominated by prohibition and law enforcement in many parts of the world have failed miserably.
Lusaka, 25 February – After a lengthy legal process, the renowned Zambian human rights and HIV activist, Paul Kasonkomona, was acquitted today by the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court on charges relating to comments he made on television in support of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people – a ruling that provides a major boost to freedom of expression in the country. In a stinging defeat for the authorities, Magistrate Lameck Ng’ambi found that the government had failed to prove its case.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s signing of the Anti-Homosexuality bill into law is a deeply worrying infringement on the human rights of all Ugandans. The law, signed by Museveni in Kampala on February 24, 2014, increases penalties for some forms of consensual same-sex conduct between adults; curtails constitutionally protected rights to privacy, family life, and equality; and violates internationally protected rights to freedom of association and expression.