Ugandan paper 'outs' 200 gays

A Ugandan newspaper yesterday listed 200 people it said were gay, a day after the president called homosexuals "mercenaries" and signed one of the world's toughest anti-gay laws.

"Exposed!" the headline of the Red Pepper tabloid read, above photographs of Ugandans it claimed were gay and lurid stories of alleged homosexual actions.

"Uganda's 200 top homos named," the daily paper added, listing people who have openly declared their sexuality and others who haven't - including gay rights activists, priests and music stars.

"In salutation to the new law, today we unleash Uganda's top homos and their sympathisers," it said.

In 2011, prominent Ugandan gay rights campaigner David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home after another paper splashed photos, names and addresses of gays in Uganda on its front page along with a headline reading "Hang them".

On Monday, President Yoweri Museveni signed a bill into law allowing for repeat homosexuality offenders to be jailed for life, outlawing the promotion of homosexuality and requiring people to denounce gays.

Museveni said he could not understand how anyone could "fail to be attracted to all these beautiful women and be attracted to a man" instead and described in detail his particular revulsion to oral sex.

"There is something really wrong with you," Museveni, a devout evangelical Christian who has been in power for nearly three decades, said of gay men.

The signing of the law came despite fierce criticism from aid donors and Western leaders, including US President Barack Obama, who warned that ties between Kampala and Washington would be damaged.

The bill will provide a stiff test for foreign donors, with Museveni warning Western nations not to meddle in the east African nation's affairs and saying he was not afraid of aid being cut.

Some donors were quick to punish Kampala by freezing or redirecting aid money.

Last year Red Pepper published photographs of retired gay British man Bernard Randall, taken from his stolen laptop. He was then arrested and was deported last month.

Prominent Ugandan gay activist Jacqueline Kasha posted photographs of the newspaper's front page on Twitter, warning that the "media witch-hunt is back".

• A magistrate in Zambia yesterday acquitted a gay rights activist charged with an offence against public morality over comments he made on television in support of homosexuals.

Magistrate Lameck Ng'ambi found the government failed to prove its case against Paul Kasonkomona.

In April 2013, Kason-komona was arrested after he appeared on a television programme where he spoke about the need to recognise the rights of vulnerable groups such as homosexuals to tackle the Aids epidemic in Africa.

He had been released on bail pending the court hearing.

As in many African countries, homosexuality is illegal in Zambia under a law against "unnatural acts" or sexual relations "against the order of nature", with punishment of up to 14 years in prison.