20 Ugandans win damages in Covid-era LGBTQ arrests

This post was originally published on France24

A Ugandan court awarded damages to 20 people who were arrested, paraded in public and tortured on suspicion of being homosexuals, in a decision hailed by rights groups on Monday. Uganda passed one of the world’s harshest anti-gay laws last year. But the case relates to the arrest of a group of youth in April 2020 — officially on the grounds they were breaking social distancing rules during the Covid pandemic. The victims’ hands were bound with ropes and they were marched barefoot to a police station as onlookers jeered and threatened them. FRANCE 24’s Clément di Roma reports.