Two Members of the European Parliament of the Flemish far-right political party Vlaams Belang abstained from voting for a resolution against capital punishment for LGBTQ people in Uganda.

The LGBTQ blog Be Out reported that not all Belgian MP voted in favour of the resolution, in which Europe expressed its concern about the Ugandan government’s “extremely homophobic rhetoric” and the intention “to reintroduce the law against homosexuality, including the death penalty for ‘severe forms of homosexuality'” of Simon Lokodo, the Ugandan Minister for Ethics and Integrity, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.

The resolution was approved by all present Belgian Members of the European Parliament, except for Filip De Man and Tom Vandendriessche from the Vlaamse Belang party.

“We are against every form of violence or persecution of people of the LGBTQ community all over the world,” said Vlaams Belang in a reaction to the news on Twitter. “However, this resolution opposes the death penalty in general, also outside Uganda, and for us, that is a sovereign decision each country has to make for itself. Hence the abstention,” the party added.

“The resolution clearly states that this is a non-existent ghost law that would never be introduced by the Ugandan Government,” the party added in a tweet.

The Belgian MPs from the rightwing party N-VA voted in favour of the resolution, despite the request from their European political group ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists, a collection of rightwing to extreme rightwing, nationalist and populist parties) asking them not to, reports Het Nieuwsblad.

The European resolution was adopted with 521 votes in favour, 4 against and 110 abstentions.

Maïthé Chini

The Brussels Times