Uganda Anti Homosexuality bill. Death opposed but life imprisonment just fine.

It seems the ongoing struggle to bring awareness to the plight of same sex persons in the African region is increasingly being fraught with increased disarray.

Point in case the latest photo to make social media rounds, this time first appearing on imgur of that of what the posting individual has termed gay person burned alive by anti gay mob in Uganda.

The harrowing image involves that of an individual, one assumes a gay person who has literally been burned alive. How or why the circumstances have come to be are not known.

[READ: Anti-gay law: Uganda accuses World Bank of blackmail]

As the deceased lies forlorn near railway tracks, onlookers, including children look on, one imagines resigned, elated that yet another individual has been ‘appropriately punished’ for having gone against the grain of society.

The image comes off the back of a purported video that made the rounds last week including that of two gay men beaten to death by an angry mob with planks of wood. In that video image, police are seen abiding by the crowd as they continually to mercilessly beat the two men to death. In the background an ambulance is sent back on its way.

Told recently, Akinyi Ocholla, a self confessed lesbian from Nairobi who works for Minority Women in Action and is a member of the International Gay and Lesbian Association: ”Being gay in this country isn’t exactly easy. It’s not as bad as in Uganda, but it’s still not easy. But you can actually pass. If you don’t make too much noise or stand out too much, then you can live comfortably — that is, until the neighborhood finds out. Then you can’t really know what’s going to happen.”

Over the weekend Uganga lawmakers passed new laws in relation to those persons engaging in same sex. Tells the BBC: Uganda’s parliament has passed a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts to include life imprisonment in some cases.

The anti-homosexuality bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence not to report gay people.

The prime minister opposed the vote, saying not enough MPs were present.

May we ask when will these atrocities stop once and for all and why do they continue to happen and why to date has the United Nations allowed such action to persist? Surely it must be time to put a stop to such inappropriate treatment of other human beings, even if their lifestyles are not condoned by various cultural or religious imperatives in the region. Which begs the question why they are so violently condemned in the first place?

Read more: S&V News