Ugandan man detained for nearly year over homosexuality freed on bail

Ugandan man detained for nearly year over homosexuality freed on bail

A Ugandan man held in pre-trial detention for nearly a year under anti-homosexuality laws which have drawn international condemnation has been freed on bail, a rights group representing him said.

Campaigners say Uganda's LGBTQ community is facing growing rights violations like house evictions, torture and others after the East African country enacted its Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) last year.

Michael Opolot, 21, was detained on August 15 last year. He was initially charged with aggravated homosexuality in a court in Soroti in Uganda's northeast and remanded. That charge was later amended for a lesser one but he had been repeatedly denied bail.

"After 350 days on remand, the Soroti Chief Magistrate's court finally granted (Opolot) ... cash bail today," Chapter Four Uganda, a human rights group which has been representing him, posted on the X platform late on Tuesday.

"This long pre-trial detention is unconscionable."

A Judiciary spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment. The release was also reported by Frank Mugisha, Uganda's most prominent LGBTQ rights campaigner, on his X account.

In a statement this month Convening for Equality (CFE), a coalition of LGBTQ rights groups, said Opolot had been subjected to forced anal examinations during his incarceration.

A prisons spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters phone call seeking comment.

The AHA introduced the death penalty for what was termed aggravated homosexuality, described as having same-sex with a vulnerable person or when the act results in transmission of a terminal illness like HIV among other categories.

Those convicted of same-sex intercourse receive life in prison, the same term that Opolot had faced after the charge against him was amended to one of having unnatural sex - covered by an old anti-sodomy law introduced in Uganda during British colonial rule.

A report by the rights groups coalition in June said that at least 1,000 LGBTQ rights violations had been recorded in the previous nine months as the new legislation fuelled a surge in anti-gay hostility.

Arrests, torture, beatings, evictions, banishment, blackmail and loss of employment were among the rights violations.

The AHA legislation drew condemnation from the West, with the U.S. imposing sanctions and travel bans while the World Bank stopped all new lending to the country.