Uganda’s biometric digital identity programme program was introduced to enhance security and ease access to public services, including health units. The government embarked on a nationwide mass registration of citizens for digital national identification (ID) cards in April 2014. During the process, biometric data such as fingerprints and facial images of Ugandans above the age of 16 years are captured on enrollment and stored in a centralised database.  However, more than 15 million Ugandans remain at risk of being excluded from accessing essential public services and entitlements as they lack national digital identity cards.

Uganda’s digital ID system is an extensive, data-intensive system that links the national ID to public social services. In August 2022, Uganda announced plans to upgrade the current national identity card to include additional personal details such as blood type, palm print, and eye scan information. This system is administered primarily by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), which is also responsible for the issuance of the IDs to citizens. However, the implementation of the system falls short of the expectations of some Ugandans due to technical gaps, denial of entitlements, and corruption among officials. By September 2022, the National Identification Register had 25.9 million Ugandans registered, with an estimated 17.4 million citizens yet to register to attain a national ID.

The Uganda digital ID card that is commonly known as Ndaga Muntu has become a mandatory “gate pass” to access several public services and government premises. Older persons living in poverty face peculiar difficulties with the national ID system, especially those aged more than 80 years, and those who live with disabilities and are required to travel to the NIRA district offices for enrolment. Citizens who do not have the national ID cards are denied access to services such as Uganda’s Senior Citizens’ Grants, National Health System, School capitation grants, property acquisition, access to land title deeds and assets registration, National Social Security Fund’s social security benefits delivery, driving permits, SIM card registration, bank account opening, passport acquisition and voter registration.

In addition, unregistered pregnant women are sometimes unable to access health services without the Ndaga Muntu. Further, citizens without the Ndaga Muntu, are often questioned by law enforcement officials about their identity and nationality.

Given these challenges, Ugandan-based civil society organisations (CSOs) sued the government of Uganda over the national digital ID at the Uganda High Court. They highlighted the exclusion of millions of unregistered Ugandans, such as aged persons, vulnerable persons, and persons with disabilities, and people with errors on the ID Cards who are limited from accessing potential life-saving services. The CSOs requested the court to declare that sole reliance on the national ID system to access health services and Social Assistant Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) benefits, among other social services, is exclusionary and discriminatory and violates human rights.

On March 23, 2023, Uganda’s High Court accepted an ‘Amicus Curiae’ brief from three human rights organisations, Access Now, ARTICLE 19, and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), in a suit challenging the country’s national digital identity scheme. The brief presents expert opinion to the Court on the potential impact of the digital ID program on human rights including the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression, as well as intersecting economic, social, and cultural rights, by providing experiences from national, sub-regional, regional and international levels.

In conclusion, many Ugandans still lack the national ID. Therefore, the government should implement alternative means of identification to enable those without a national ID to access national public services without discrimination. In addition, it should put in place measures to address the challenges faced in the roll-out of the cards and fast-track the issuance of cards to those already enrolled.

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By Muthoki Mumo

Kuchu Times was founded eight years ago to give voice to Uganda’s LGBTQ+ community. Now, a new anti-homosexuality law is threatening this mission at a time when LGBTQ+ Ugandans are facing beatings and evictions.“People will tell us their stories and ask us not to put them out there, not until it is safer,” Kuchu Times deputy director, Ruth Muganzi, told CPJ. “We are meant to ensure LGBTI voices are heard but we are gagged. This is the pain we suffer since the law was passed.”

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, enacted in May, punishes consensual same-sex relations with life imprisonment, entrenching restrictions in a 1950 penal code. Those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality” for same-sex relations with minors, the elderly, or the disabled, face the death penalty. There are reports that the law has sparked “increased vigilantism” against LGBTQ+ Ugandans, and that some have been forced into exile or hiding.

Kuchu Times still posts on its website. But its annual magazine, Bombastic, is on hold in part because the team is grappling with how to print a publication that mostly features personal accounts without endangering sources.

The law has potential ramifications for the press beyond issues with sourcing. Anyone convicted of printing, broadcasting, or distributing material “promoting or encouraging homosexuality” could be imprisoned for 20 years. Free speech advocates fear that this provision poses a risk to the media.

“This law, in so many ways, is an anti-publication law. The broad terms in which it talks about promoting homosexuality can be interpreted to mean anything,” said Nicholas Opiyo, a human rights activist and one of the lawyers in a petition challenging the law’s constitutionality. “Covering a story that depicts the community in a positive light could be interpreted to mean promoting homosexuality.”

Companies found to be promoting homosexuality face license revocations or fines of up to one billion Ugandan shillings (US$269,000). It is a financial penalty akin to “strangulation,” said Robert Ssempala, executive director of Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a press rights group.

For Kuchu Times, which derives its name from the slang that queer Ugandans use to identify themselves, the implications of these provisions are clear — and grave. But there are signs that the law may have a chilling effect on news organizations that don’t solely focus on the LGBTQ+ community, too.

CPJ interviewed 13 journalists about the new law. Most requested anonymity, fearing professional and social repercussions of talking about a law they perceive to have popular support, including within the media industry. Nine told CPJ that while they have not cut back their reporting, and their newsrooms still cover the LGBTQ+ community, the law is affecting the way they work.

Two Ugandan reporters contributing to international media say that they’ve had trouble finding LGBTQ+ Ugandans to interview about the law’s impact on access to HIV treatment, and about incidents of persecution. A third journalist has decided to forgo a byline on some LGBTQ+ coverage “out of an abundance of caution.” A newspaper editor and a television reporter told CPJ that company lawyers have been brought into editorial discussions to advise on what copy might breach the law.

“Are you promoting homosexuality if you give a story about a gay person a lot of space in your paper? Or are you just reporting? Should you give these stories lower prominence?” the newspaper editor said. “It is a thin line; journalists might not know where it is until they’ve crossed it.”

Fox Odoi-Oyweloyo, a ruling party politician who voted against the law and is now petitioning against it in court, told CPJ that he recently declined four broadcast interview invitations after journalists called in advance and asked him to tone down his views once on air. Ssempala said that in two instances, broadcast journalists warned him not to “go there” when he broached the law’s press freedom implications.

Three of the journalists who spoke to CPJ also expressed concern that given Uganda’s spotty press freedom record, which includes physical attacks on journalists, arrests, and the use of criminal libel charges against the press, the law might be used as a pretext to target critical media.

“It is a trap that you eventually walk into. You might be punished not because anyone is necessarily outraged because you interviewed an LGBTQ person, but because they are unhappy with your [other] coverage,” said Lydia Namubiru, news editor of the Pan-African weekly e-paper, The Continent.

Authorities in Uganda have previously sanctioned the media for its coverage of LGBTQ+ issues. In 2004, regulators fined a radio station US$1,000 for depicting homosexuality as an “acceptable way of life” and in 2007, a radio show host was suspended after interviewing a lesbian activist. Bombastic has also faced threats.

“History has shown us it has happened. It is not inconceivable that the same will happen again,” said Opiyo.

Namubiru told CPJ she also worries that the media will “not grow better” at reporting on the LGBTQ+ community while the law makes it difficult or dangerous to publish their voices.

Ugandan media have a record of homophobic, even inflammatory, coverage of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2010, a now-defunct newspaper called for the hanging of homosexuals. One of those named in the publication, gay rights activist David Kato, was bludgeoned to death a few months later. In 2014 the Red Pepper tabloid exposed the names of people it called the “200 top homos.”

In court filings responding to petitions challenging the law, Uganda’s attorney general Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the law does not infringe on human rights, including freedom of expression. The attorney general said that the law is “intended to protect the traditional family” and is “unambiguous and purposeful.”

Some journalists share similar opinions. A broadcast reporter based in eastern Uganda feels empowered to investigate sexual crimes by a section of the law requiring the public to report “reasonable suspicion” of the “offense of homosexuality,” the reporter told CPJ.

CPJ’s emails to the office of Attorney General Kiwanuka were unanswered. CPJ called Asuman Basalirwa, the opposition legislator who authored the law, and sent requests for comment via his parliamentary email address and text message but did not receive any replies.

Other African journalists may also soon face freedom of expression concerns surrounding anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Ghana is considering a law which carries the potential for censorship. In Kenya, one lawmaker has called for a ban on “any discussions, publications and spread of news on same-sex relationships” while another has drafted a law similar to Uganda’s. Cameroon’s media regulator has threatened to suspend programs “promoting homosexual practices.”

As Ugandans wait on the courts to decide the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, Muganzi remains defiant. This law, she said, is just another battle for the country’s LGBTQ+ community and Kuchu Times will not stay away from the frontlines.

“We must keep speaking up so that Ugandans have a wider picture of LGBTI people. We must keep saying: We are not a myth. We are not an import of the West. We are your friends, your neighbors, your brothers, and your sisters,” she said. “As a lesbian woman, I do not have the privilege to remain afraid and silent.”

Muthoki Mumo is CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative. She is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a master’s in journalism and globalization from the University of Hamburg.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised the potential of technology to enhance health outcomes. The WHO’s Global strategy on digital health 2020-2025 aims to promote the appropriate use of digital technologies for health, taking into consideration health promotion and disease prevention, patient safety, ethics, interoperability, intellectual property, data security (confidentiality, integrity, and availability), privacy, cost-effectiveness, patient engagement, and affordability.

In the wake of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), countries in Africa, like their counterparts across the world, have dramatically increased the use of digital technologies in the health sector, including in diagnosis, disease surveillance, education, research, data management, and care delivery. At the regional level, the African Union (AU) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are setting up digitalisation policy frameworks for social-economic transformation including in the health sector.

For instance, the AU’s Digital Transformation Strategy 2020-2030 cites the health sector (among others) as critical to driving digital transformation for prosperity and inclusivity. The Africa Union Data Policy Framework also emphasises that improved, integrated data systems directly contribute to improved health.

In May 2023, the Africa CDC launched its Digital Transformation Strategy 2023-2030 to harness digital health to leapfrog some of the barriers affecting healthcare and public health. The strategy alludes to the challenge of poor quality of health data and poor governance and management practices of data ecosystems – such as poor coordination between governments and partners that fund these data infrastructure.

The AU and WHO assert that digital health solutions should benefit people in a way that is “ethical, safe, secure, reliable, equitable and sustainable”; and that they should be developed with principles of “transparency, accessibility, scalability, replicability, interoperability, privacy, security and confidentiality”. However, evidence from some African countries shows a complicated picture.

Research has found that in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries adopted regulations and practices, including deploying disease surveillance technologies and untested applications, to enable them to collect and process personal data for purposes of tracing, contacting, and isolating those suspected to be carrying the virus and those confirmed to carry it. These measures were quickly adopted, often without adequate regulation or oversight.

The reality of the explosion in use of digital tools in the health sector has not been adequately studied. Risks posed by these technologies to patient privacy and data protection, creation of data silos and duplication, and real world harm to patients are issues that should be investigated to inform efforts to institute relevant and effective safeguards.

Take the example of Uganda:

Uganda has a fairly robust national data ecosystem. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics is among the most efficient statistics agencies in Africa and it conducts major surveys on schedule. Various private entities, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and development partners have also introduced new tech-based data collection instruments often presented as plugging gaps and aiming to strengthen the data ecosystem. This progressive data collection culture has, however, inadvertently created a problem: multiple siloed data and information systems, many of them not speaking to each other.

The country’s health sector is among the top funded – both by government and development partners – and has one of the strongest data and information systems.

Since 1985 Uganda’s health ministry has used the Health Management Information System (HMIS) to collect health-related data so as to improve health care management decisions at all levels of the health system. The HMIS and its associated District Health Information System (DHIS2) are used to collect routine health data from the lowest health unit to the national referral hospital. The DHIS2 is an open source, web-based platform used in many countries to collect health data in clinics and hospitals.

All state health facilities and privately-owned ones that are supported by the government, are expected to use the HMIS/DHIS2 systems and to submit routine patient data, according to the ministry’s HMIS procedure manual.

While the HMIS is meant to provide data for monitoring and evaluating the progress of the health sector, over the years, the system has faced multiple challenges. It is largely paper-based, leading to poor quality of the data collected. Limited understanding and skills amongst health workers on HMIS tools and inadequate human resource capacity to analyse and curate the data add to the problem. Low involvement of private health providers in contributing data to the system is yet another challenge.

Uganda Embraces Technology for Health

In 2016, Uganda developed an eHealth Policy followed in 2017 by an eHealth Strategy, in whose preamble the ministry states that it recognises the potential of technology “in transforming healthcare delivery by enabling information access and supporting healthcare operations, management, and decision making”. The strategy stated that Uganda’s health sector was characterised by fragmented and siloed pilot projects and information systems with significant barriers to effective sharing of information. The policy aimed to ensure better coordination in the innovation space where multiple players aspire to improve health data management and service delivery using digital technologies.

In May 2023, the health ministry launched the new Uganda Health Information and Digital Health Strategic Plan 2020-2025 aimed at further strengthening the health information ecosystem in the country by promoting responsible use of digital tools to document and share patient data while maintaining coordination among all players.

These efforts by the health ministry align with Uganda’s digitalisation agenda as part of its National Development Plan (NDP) III, the country’s blueprint to becoming a middle income country.

The health ministry’s 2020-2025 Strategic Plan acknowledges challenges the government faces in digitising and transforming the health data ecosystem:

• Limited qualified cadres in health information systems (HIS) at all levels, especially at lower levels of the health system.
• Inadequate Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and capacity for HIS management, including data security, data sharing, reporting and implementation at health facility and community levels.
• A multiplicity of duplicate and uncoordinated health information platforms with limited integration into the national HIS.
• Limited individual skills, system capabilities, financial resources and a lack of SOPs for supporting, using and maintaining digital health resources, equipment and infrastructure.
• Limited use of electronic health and medical records for clinical care, research and routine data analytics that would aid policy and pragmatic decision-making.

The  above challenges are exacerbated by a shortage of supporting infrastructure. The country’s internet penetration rate stands at 60%, but internet costs are prohibitively high, and many health facilities lack connectivity. Furthermore, the electricity access rate stands at just 57%.

Digital Health Applications and Data Governance

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a proliferation of pandemic-related innovations in Uganda, including for contact tracing, and digitisation of vaccination data. Yet not many of the innovations did not adhere to established data protection regulations. Similarly, the Public Health (Control of COVID-19) Rules, 2020 and the Public Health (Prevention of COVID-19) (Requirements and Conditions of Entry into Uganda) Order, 2020 did not specify measures to guarantee data protection.

The Personal Data Protection Office (PDPO) was not operationalised until August 2021 – deep into the enforcement of the country’s disease surveillance measures. To-date, there is no indication that the Office had any oversight over the enforcement of COVID-19 Rules and the Order of 2020 in accordance with the data protection law.

Health Data Regulation: Lessons from COVID-19 Surveillance in Kenya and Uganda, June 2023.

More recently, a coordinated response to the Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda enabled its swift end partly due to a centralised repository of data on Ebola cases from verified sources, which provided vital information to various stakeholders. Another data tool by WHO called Go.Data improved Ebola surveillance, contact tracing and decision making, rendering the epidemic easier to manage. The tool revolutionised data collection, collation and analysis, which are critical in disease outbreaks situations by enabling frontline health workers and District Health Teams (DHTs) to handle information management for contact follow-up and reporting in real-time. And yet, just like with the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no transparency or audits on these tools’ data protection practices.

Accordingly, it is imperative that Uganda puts in place regulatory standards and guidance to effectively reap the benefits of innovation in the health sector. The health ministry and Makerere University have developed a handbook that provides a set of requirements to guide the development of digital health standards and adoption of digital health data standards to enhance health information management and decision-making processes across the health sector.

As part of rolling out those standards, it will be crucial for the ministry to establish Working Groups made up of a multi stakeholder group of experts that can review innovations in the health data management sector, including their privacy credentials and general added value. Furthermore, they would establish benchmarks and best practices in the health data innovation space, such as  on collaboration, to avoid duplication of efforts and promote interoperability. Meanwhile, other existing frameworks  such as the Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2018 rules for conducting surveys and censuses should be strictly enforced for both state and non-state actors.For its part, the Office of Personal Data Protection (PDPO) is now fully operational and provides benchmarks on how to handle personal data. The PDPO has enforced registration of data collectors, controllers and processors and rolled out capacity building as well as awareness raising programmes. Dedicated interventions by the PDPO targeting the health sector will ensure that actors and entities are compliant with regulations, thereby ensuring patient data confidentiality and integrity.

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On April 28, 2023, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)  submitted comments on the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2023 to the Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development of the Uganda Parliament. The comments argue that the proposed law would undermine access to and use of digital tools and services.

The bill, among others, proposes to impose a tax of five percent on foreign-based entities that derive income from providing digital services to customers in Uganda. The proposals are contained in clause 16, which seeks to introduce a new section, 86A.

Clause 86A provides:

1. A tax is imposed on every non-resident person deriving income from providing digital services in Uganda to a customer in Uganda at the rate prescribed in Part IV of the Third Schedule to this Act.
2. For the purposes of subsection (1), income is derived from providing a digital service in Uganda to a customer in Uganda, if the digital service is delivered over the internet, electronic network or an online platform.
3. For the purposes of this section “digital service” includes—

1. online advertising services;
2. data services;
3. services delivered through an online marketplace or intermediation platform, including an accommodation online marketplace, a vehicle hire online marketplace and any other transport online marketplace;
4. digital content services, including accessing and downloading of digital content;
5. online gaming services;
6. cloud computing services;
7. data warehousing;
8. services, other than those services in this subsection, delivered through a social media platform or an internet search engine; and
9. any other digital services as the Minister may prescribe by statutory instrument made under this Act.”

While the clause targets non-residents, if enacted it would add to the digital taxes borne by the already tax-burdened consumers of digital services in Uganda. Since July 1, 2022, web hosting, software and streaming services in the country pay a mandatory value added tax of 18% chargeable on consumers of services offered by  platforms such as Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Twitter and Zoom.

The tax would potentially hinder inclusive access and use of digital technologies and negatively affect Uganda’s digital economy. According to the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), Uganda’s digital economy score is low, particularly in areas such as digital inclusiveness. According to the UNCDF Score Card of 2021 the digital divide or groups most excluded from the digital economy in Uganda are the elderly (80%), rural communities (64%), persons with disabilities (74%), the youth (33%), refugees (80%) and migrants (75%). The inclusion gap such as for persons with disabilities is attributed to the high cost of technologies.

Innovation is a prerequisite for the provision of digital services including advertising, data services, marketing, cloud computing services, and data warehousing. Most of these tools and services are developed outside Uganda, hence imposing high taxes on non-residents that provide them could limit access to these critical tools and services. That could push Ugandans further into the margins of the global digital economy.

The enjoyment of digital rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression, access to information, and association, could also be limited by the imposition of high digital taxes.

Accordingly, the submission by CIPESA recommends that the Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development:

1. Drops the entire proposed clause 16 of the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2023;
2. Conducts wide consultations with the affected stakeholders including the tech community, innovators, the business community and civil society on the potential effects of the proposed amendment.
3. Conducts a tax impact assessment to weigh the potential effects of the proposed tax on access and use of digital tools and services. The impact assessment should specifically spell out the anticipated positive impacts and weigh them against the anticipated negative effects.
4. Takes into consideration and supports all the progressive policies that seek to increase and enhance accessibility and usage of digital tools and services such as tax incentives which usually lead to lowering of the costs to be borne by consumers in purchase and use of digital tools and services.

See the full submission here.

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On March 24, 2023, the High Court of Uganda at Kampala ruled to allow experts from Access Now, ARTICLE 19, and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) to offer their opinions on the human rights red flags around the country’s digital identification (ID) system.

The ruling followed an application by the three organisations for admission as “Friends of Court” in a case which challenges the use of the National Identification Register as the sole data source and primary means of identification prior to accessing various social services. Uganda’s national digital ID, also known as Ndaga Muntu, is a mandatory scheme for accessing various socio-economic services.

The court admitted the amicus brief submission by the trio despite objections from the Attorney General and the National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA) on grounds that the application was facilitated by bias and partiality of the applicants. The respondents further argued that the applications introduced new, inadmissible evidence – an assertion the court did not agree with. The court, in fact, noted the significance of the arguments raised  by Access Now, ARTICLE 19 and CIPESA, particularly on data protection, digital inclusion, surveillance, and the sufficiency of protection measures and their impact on the right to privacy.

The admission means that the court will consider the opinions of the three organisations in determining the case challenging Uganda’s digital ID system. In his ruling, Justice  Boniface Wamala noted that the matters the three organisations raised did not constitute evidence. Rather, they “constitute legal concepts that are new, unfamiliar, unusual or unique. Such aspects constitute the quality of novelty.”

The organisations made the application as neutral parties and experts to assist the court to be better abreast with novel areas that potentially contribute to the development of the law.

The joint brief seeks to help court fully grasp the potential impact of the national digital ID program on online and offline rights, including the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression, as well as intersecting economic, social, and cultural rights, by providing expert evidence at national, sub regional, regional, and international levels. It also explains how the digital identity system might contribute to excluding citizens from basic access to services, thereby leaving them in a vulnerable state.

The case challenging the ID system was filed by the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Unwanted Witness, and Health Equity and Policy Initiative, against the Ugandan Attorney General and the NIRA. The NIRA is the body charged with creating and managing the National Identification Register by registering births, deaths, citizens and non-citizens.

In its affidavit in support of the amicus application, CIPESA argued that as an expert in advancing internet freedom and governance, civic participation, and data governance, it saw the need to intervene as a friend of court, in public interest and the interest of justice, to promote and protect human rights.

According to CIPESA’s Legal Officer, Edrine Wanyama, the ruling to hear the opinions of the expert organisations could help in shaping new and emerging areas of the law in Uganda on the need to respect privacy and other rights in the deployment of digital technologies in public digitalisation programmes, including initiatives like the Digital ID.

“This is a demonstration of the commitment of the courts to remain open to new and emerging knowledge and jurisprudence and to receive expert opinions on how to protect citizens from potential harms associated with the use of technology,” said Wanyama.

CIPESA anticipates that the court will draw considerable knowledge from the amicus submissions and reach a decision that ensures that the roll-out of the digital ID system does not serve as a tool for exclusion but as an inclusion tool for all persons in accessing social and economic services.

Access Now, ARTICLE 19, and CIPESA aim to continue offering the court expert views that could help to ensure that the digital ID system is implemented in a manner that respects minimum human rights standards and promotes and protects rights and freedoms.

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President should reject bill, stop systemic oppression

Yesterday, Ugandan lawmakers approved new legislation that entrenches the criminalization of same-sex conduct. It also creates new offenses that will curtail any activism on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues and eradicate LGBT people from any form of social engagement in Uganda.

The 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill confirms an already existing punishment of life imprisonment for same-sex conduct, while also increasing to 10 years the prison sentence for an attempt at same-sex conduct. But one of the most egregious provisions – the bill calls it “aggravated homosexuality” – calls for the death penalty in certain circumstances, including for “serial offenders,” or for anyone having same-sex relations with a person with a disability, thereby automatically denying persons with disabilities the capacity to consent to sex.

The bill also outlaws the “promotion of homosexuality,” effectively instituting a system of complete censorship on LGBT issues. Anyone advocating for the rights of LGBT people, or providing financial support to organizations that do so, could face up to 20 years’ imprisonment. LGBT rights groups could also be deemed unable to legally operate. In addition, anyone who “advertises, publishes, prints, broadcasts, distributes” material, including digitally, is regarded as “promoting or encouraging homosexuality” and would face criminal sanction.

The bill also criminalizes any person who fails to report someone they suspect of participating in same-sex acts to the police, calling for a fine or imprisonment for six months. Effectively, supportive family members or friends of LGBT people could be imprisoned if they failed to report their loved ones to authorities. If anyone conducts a same-sex marriage ceremony, they could be imprisoned for up to 10 years. A provision in the bill also outlaws providing accommodation that facilitates the “offence of homosexuality.” If anyone were to rent a room to a gay couple, for example, they could go to jail for 10 years.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has 30 days to assent or reject the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. If the law comes into force, it will violate the rights to freedom of expression and association, liberty, privacy, equality, freedom from discrimination, inhuman and degrading treatment, and a fair hearing – all guaranteed under Ugandan and international law – for all Ugandans.

Museveni should reject the bill and parliament should introduce comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation that would protect sexual and other minorities in line with Uganda’s international obligations.

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Protect, don’t punish vulnerable minorities

Once again, Ugandan lawmakers are launching a scathing attack against sexual minorities by proposing a new law that could make it illegal to say that you are gay, lesbian, or transgender.

Last Tuesday, following months of hostile rhetoric against sexual and gender minorities by public figures and an intensified government crackdown on human rights groups, including those defending the rights of Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, Uganda’s parliament granted leave to parliamentarian Asuman Basalirwa to introduce a revised and even more egregious version of the previously struck down 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The proposed new law makes it an offence to touch another person “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality” and the “promotion of homosexuality.” It also effectively declares all same-sex conduct as nonconsensual. If passed, it would furthermore criminalize sexual and gender identity that is “contrary to the binary categories of male and female” and make it a crime to participate in a same sex marriage ceremony.

LGBT people face many risks in Uganda. The penal code already punishes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature,” which is interpreted to mean homosexual relations, with up to life imprisonment. The government has carried out two mass arrests of people on the basis of their presumed sexual orientation or gender identity and raided homeless shelters for LGBT youth, beating and arresting residents. In August 2022, the government banned Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a prominent LGBT rights organization, for not having officially registered even though the same authorities had blocked the group from registering.

When the Constitutional Court struck down the former Anti-Homosexuality Act on procedural grounds, the court did not take the opportunity to affirm the rights to freedom of expression, association, and privacy, which are provided for in the country’s constitution. Instead of targeting LGBT people, Ugandan politicians should affirm these fundamental human rights apply to all Ugandans, including vulnerable minorities.

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Across Africa, a gender-inclusive digital society remains largely elusive. Beyond the challenges related to the gender digital divide and online gender-based violence, the growth in form and prevalence of online disinformation in Africa is also taking on a gendered lens. Pushback against gendered disinformation is thus critical to combating online harms against women and attaining gender equity.

In Uganda, there has been a notable upward trend in gendered disinformation, with attacks targeted at organisations working on sexual and reproductive rights. This, against a backdrop of offline attacks, such as the August 2022 suspension of the operations of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) on allegations that the organisation had failed to register with the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations.

During the second half of 2022, the activist group HER Internet implemented a project to create awareness and understanding of gendered disinformation, including its effects and perpetrators in Uganda. With a focus on sexual minorities and sex workers, the project supported by the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) also worked to build alliances and networks as support systems for mitigation of impact and countering false narratives.

HER Internet convened an interactive dialogue in Uganda’s capital Kampala to share real life experiences, as well as strategies on how to avert the negative effects of gendered disinformation. Targeting 20 individuals from communities of structurally marginalised women, the dialogue also covered aspects of fact-checking and safety online.

Extract from HER Internet handbook on understanding gendered disinformation

The dialogue called for non-discriminatory enforcement of current cyber laws and the need for diverse narratives to eliminate biased reporting, amongst other measures. In addition to the dialogue, HER Internet also conducted a campaign on its social media platforms on the key concepts of gendered disinformation, its manifestations and counter strategies. The project also compiled and disseminated a handbook on understanding gendered disinformation as a go-to guide for communities to understand and further engage beyond the campaign and dialogues.

According to a 2020 report by UN Women, women with multiple identities, such as sexual and ethnic minorities, are often targeted online through discrimination and hate speech, which often forces them to self-censor and withdraw from debates and online discussions. Similarly, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, has stated that some groups of women, including women belonging to ethnic minorities, indigenous women, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, and women with disabilities, are particularly targeted by technology-facilitated violence.

Research by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has found that cyberstalking, online sexual harassment, blackmail through non-consensual sharing of personal information, promotes and normalises violence against women and girls who use the internet in Uganda. HER Internet’s project builds on ADRF’s gender and sexual inclusivity portfolio. The ADRF has previously supported digital literacy and safety programmes for sexual minority refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan, living in Uganda.

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The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) welcomes the ruling by Uganda’s Constitutional Court that section 25 of the Computer Misuse Act of 2011, which penalises “offensive communication”, is null and void. This section has severally been used by state authorities to silence dissent, and CIPESA has for long supported efforts to expunge it from the eastern African country’s key internet law.

On January 10, 2023, Uganda’s constitutional court ruled that section 25 of the Computer Misuse Act is inconsistent with the country’s constitution and called for an immediate halt to its enforcement, including for all cases being prosecuted or investigated. The court’s decision could bring to an end the utilisation of this problematic provision that has for a decade been weaponised to silence critics, political opponents and dissidents. The government can appeal the constitutional court’s decision to the Supreme Court within 14 days.

This week’s ruling is the result of a 2016 petition in which the litigants argued that section 25 was vague, violated civil liberties, and contravened constitutional guarantees.

The law on computer misuse defines offensive communication as the “willful and repeated use of electronic communication to disturb or attempt to disturb the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person with no purpose of legitimate communication whether or not a conversation ensues.” The offence is punishable by a fine not exceeding USD 130 or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.

However, opponents of the law have argued that this provision is vague, overly broad and ambiguous. Further, they contended that the provision does not give a fair warning regarding what conduct is deemed illegal under the right and freedom of speech and expression pursuant to article 29(1)(a) of Uganda’s constitution.

In this week’s ruling, Justice Kenneth Kakuru, who wrote the lead judgement, stated that he had determined that the words used under section 25 were “vague, overly broad and ambiguous.” According to the judge, what constitutes an offence is “unpredictable” and this gives the law enforcer the discretion to choose what qualifies as offensive. Justice Kakuru added that the provision “gives law enforcement unfettered discretion to punish unpopular or critical protected expression.”

Section 25 of the Computer Misuse Act has severally been invoked to issue threats, effect arrests, detention, and prosecution of individuals over their online communications.

The Computer Misuse Act has been previously used to suppress digital rights including free expression and access to information. For instance, academic and social critic Dr. Stella Nyanzi was arrested for insulting the president in a social media post. In 2019, she was convicted of cyber harassment contrary to section 24 of the Act but acquitted of offensive communications, which is proscribed under section 25. Other individuals who have suffered the wrath of the same law include former presidential aspirant Henry Tumukunde who was arrested over alleged treasonable utterances in radio and television interviews, the Bizonto comedy group who were arrested over alleged offensive and sectarian posts, and author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija who was arrested, detained and prosecuted over offensive communication against the president and his son. (Source: CIPESA Submits Comments on the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022 to Parliament)

Despite this progressive decision by the Constitutional court, the Computer Misuse Act will remain a key impediment to free expression and the enjoyment of digital rights, notably because of amendments made to the law in late 2022. Those amendments ambiguously prohibit the “misuse of social media,” sending or sharing of unsolicited information through a computer, and sending, sharing or transmission of malicious information about or relating to any person. These prohibitions, whose introduction was condemned by wide sections of Ugandan civil society, human rights defenders and some government officials, present a key curtailment of freedom of expression and access to information.

Promoters of the amendments argued that existing laws did not “specifically address the regulation of information sharing on social media” or were “not adequate to deter the vice”. However, critics argued that efforts should instead have focused on addressing the existing retrogressive provisions in the law, notably those on “cyber harassment” and “offensive communication”.

Accordingly, CIPESA alongside 13 civil society organisations and individuals filed a petition challenging those amendments. This followed CIPESA’s submission of comments and presentation of concerns before the Parliamentary Committee on Information and Communication Technology ahead of the enactment of the amendments. In those submissions, CIPESA argued that since its enactment, the Computer Misuse Act had been used to suppress digital rights including free expression and access to information and the proposed amendment would present a further blow to online civil liberties.

In its ruling, the constitutional court noted that, “In a democratic and free society, prosecuting people for the content of their communication is a violation of what falls within guarantees of freedom of expression in a democratic society.” The ruling is a step in the right direction in combating wanton limitations to digital rights in Uganda, where a flurry of technology-related laws were enacted in the wake of the 2010 Arab Spring during which users leveraged digital platforms and social media to build movements and mobilise public protests against their autocratic governments.

Besides the Computer Misuse Act, other laws enacted in Uganda during this time include the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act, 2010, the Electronic Signatures Act, 2011, and the Electronic Transactions Act, 2011, all of which variously interfere with digital rights including data privacy, access to information, and freedom of expression.

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In tweets earlier this week that were later deleted, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, threatened to “crush” journalists who “abuse” him. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by his alarming comments and points out that the right to report news and information is essential in a democracy.

“For some of those journalists that like to abuse us… let me say nobody will protect you when we come to power,” Muhoozi said in a tweet posted on 5 December, adding: “You will feel us soon. We will crush you.”

The former commander of land forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Force, Muhoozi currently holds the position of senior presidential advisor on special operations and is seen as a potential successor to his father, who is on RSF’s list of press freedom predators.

In a tweet earlier the same day, which like the second one was later deleted, Muhoozi singled out journalists working for the Daily Monitor, the country’s most popular newspaper. He accused them of being “terrorists (…) that have been abusing us forever” and threatening to deal with them if they don’t stop.

“In a country marred by too many attacks on press freedom, these serious threats from a high-ranking general endangering the safety of journalists are unacceptable. We remind Muhoozi Kainerugaba that journalism is not a crime. The right to report the news and provide an independent interpretation of the news is essential in a democracy.”

Sadibou Marong

Director of RSF’s Africa bureau

Tony Glencross, the managing director of the Daily Monitor’s owner, the Nation Media Group, which is East and Central Africa’s biggest independent media group, responded to Muhoozi by tweeting: “Daily Monitor journalists are not terrorists. They are upstanding, honest and patriotic Ugandans (…) A free press is a cornerstone of democracy.”

Notorious for inopportune and controversial social media pronouncements that are reminiscent of Donald Trump’s, Muhoozi has often warned the media about criticising him on governance issues.

Many journalists have been tortured in the past by the Special Forces Command (SFC), an elite military unit that protects the first family including Muhoozi, who has himself been the unit’s commander twice, from 2008 to 2017 and from 2020 to 2021.

Uganda is ranked 132nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

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