Have a Good NEWS

Patience Akumu wrote about life - and death - of homosexual activists for five years at the Observer Kampala. Here's how the ruins of his country deeply rooted discrimination

never wanted to write about gay rights in Uganda. The only question that crept over me, and I failed to hear the cries of battered women and holding the hands of children who die.

is faceless, mysterious, disturbing labeled gay in my skirts and called my heart to find their way. I watched for a while and I knew it would be cruel to move again. I never wanted to give up the possibility of a lucrative career in law just to be a defender of the damned and rejected - and be rejected and cursed myself. I never intended to spend two hours in front of my computer, thinking of ways to explain why the heck I get with homosexuality only to break the heart of my brothers, Let my father and my boyfriend worry for my mother because her daughter and pity.

homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and in 2009 a bill that proposes the death penalty for certain homosexual acts was presented to Parliament, highlighting the brutal government sanctioned discrimination against sexual minorities ruined my country.

I found the gay question 22, fresh law graduate young journalist eager to make their mark and are willing to do jobs that no journalist wanted to do. It was a world where everything was fine, even heroic, to challenge the decades of the regime and its forms in other things. If your unit has been overwritten or slept in prison to cover a riot, social media week will sing your praise and proudly share pictures of your challenge.

But heaven help you if you wrote about homosexuals, unless of course he condemned the devastation they cause in the culture and religion. Or "investigate" how are infiltrating schools, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, causing fistulae and forcibly recruit children to join a "gay army".

Reports

other would immediately be regarded with suspicion: "Are you gay you Butabika Is it necessary to visit [psychiatric hospital] whites are paid to do this"

But homosexuality looked everyone in the face. A comment here and there to make a law saying that it was a matter of human rights, a brief article in the newspaper about a homosexual who had disappeared, a call from a minister who believed that homosexuals should leave the country, hard sex with masks and appearing on television and threatening police with arrest. Who were these people? For a long time when I thought that homosexuals only saw the masks and the innocent children who have been expelled from high school for allegedly being gay.

whole was banned and exciting territory, and I went into a corner without a care in the world - that's the kind of story that the average house was ready to publish, then why not? I still remember my first meeting with gay rights activist Frank Mugisha and Pepe Onziema in a restaurant near my workplace. I took a friend along this "dangerous" work. Share chips (my friend told me that the worst part of the interview was to have room with homosexuals) and we talked about many things I had heard in the category of human rights in University - the right to equality, non-discrimination, privacy.

also talked about things I had never imagined. Gays and lesbians have been raped, sometimes with sticks, the parents had banned their children to be gay and now children threatened suicide. A father had tried to conquer the death of his daughter lesbian couple. No doubt, these are the things that the media should cover! All the stories of women and the rights of children he had written to me had become a voice for the voiceless, who loved nothing NGOs call for human rights related to the cause of my "refreshing" and journalism "care."

For me, embracing gay rights was simply an extension of the good work. I did not expect emails hatred, vile insults Facebook or face to face messages. No one told me there would be no suspicious glances from colleagues, friends lost and severe warnings not write many gay stories, as it could affect the circulation of newspapers. And nobody told me that having a baby would make me even more disgusting - hypocritical campaign for the rights of homosexuals, when she has a husband Until I had a baby, I do not care if everyone thought I was gay, as long as I knew I was doing the right thing (and professional).

My boyfriend, while supporting warns always underestimate the dangers of my job. My blind passion, I hate that our society is not ready to hear my message.

Sometimes, before arriving home, I think his warnings, stroking my degree and play with the idea of ??applying for a job in law. I dream of a life where I'm a hero easy - just talk about women and children who all agree, they deserve better. One in which I give to homosexuals because, well, why should I care? I'm not gay and I have no gay parents (at least not that I know). They will survive, homosexuals. I'm sure. Days like this, I'm going to bed with a determination: I'll be damned if I write a story about homosexuality


But then comes the morning with the story of a gay man beaten. Or text Frank told me that one of the gay people I visited died of AIDS and that there are many more to follow in their wake.

Yes, the morning comes with headlines asking Ugandans to "hang" and nobody seems to care. A phone call gay NGO "Patience this patient" ... You can not leave me alone? I realize that, unlike me, you can not just wake up one day and away from the issue of homosexuality.

My story the past five years has been the story of their lives and deaths. Again, I can hear myself and I know that this is a story that must be told. And if I do not say that the world could do the job for my country. And once again that we are the worst place to be gay. And we're not, really. There is a big misunderstanding.
Find best price for : --Mugisha----Frank----Onziema----Pepe----Uganda--