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Court Agrees to Hear Lesbian Case
12 Sept 2007- Uganda -The High Court
has agreed to hear the case of two women who claim they were tortured by the
Police and the LCI chairman of Kireka on allegations that they were lesbians.
Justice Stella Arach-Amoko yesterday
overruled the Attorney General's objection to the hearing of the case. The
Attorney General had asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the
applicants used the wrong procedure.
"The issue raised by the Attorney General
is a mere technicality The respondent is free to cross-examine the applicants as
they would in an ordinary suit," the judge said. She set September 21 for the
case to start.
Both anti-gay activists and those
advocating for equal rights for homosexuals were present at the court.
The first group included Pastor Martin
Ssempa and his followers, while the second group consisted of young people
dressed in T-shirts with rainbow-colours and stickers saying 'Let us live in
peace'.
In the case, Yvonne Oyoo, a Kenyan student
of Makerere University, and Victor Juliet Mukasa, a Ugandan human rights
activist, alleged that the Kireka LC1 chief and the local Police tortured,
molested and treated them in a degrading manner after arresting them on
allegations that they were lesbians.
The women, who are represented by Ladislaus
Rwakafuzi, dragged the Attorney General to court alleging that their rights had
been violated. They are seeking damages from the state.
Oyoo alleges that on July 20, 2005, the
Kireka LC1 chief, accompanied by the Police, found her alone in Mukasa's house,
where she was a visitor, and arrested her.
She further alleges that she was taken to
the home of the LC chief and later to the Kireka Police post, where the
officer-in-charge undressed her under the pretext that he wanted to confirm that
she was a woman, and sexually harassed her by fondling her breasts.
"This was not only very humiliating and
degrading, but also a gross violation of my human rights," Oyoo said in her
affidavit.
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