When media and state combine forces

Diane Bakuraira is a gender-nonconforming Ugandan activist who says that, after being outed in the Ugandan press, her life “was never normal again”.

“It happened after I told my story about being a gender-nonconforming person living in Uganda to a British newspaper. The Ugandan media saw the article after it was posted online. But they twisted the story completely, changing my story to something else. The impact of that was really disturbing for me, because before that — before the article and the [AntiHomosexuality] Bill coming into effect — I had always lived my life openly. People never really cared how I identified.

“But after that article, my life was never normal again. I lost some of my friends because of the lies this paper wrote about me. I had to change my movements, switching from using public transport.

“Emotionally, too, it has really tainted me. I had to stay away from work and seek refuge, because I was attacked one night on my way home from work. They beat me very badly, shouting that they knew the kind of work I do and where I work; that I must move out of that area because they don’t appreciate my kind of people living there. I eventually had to relocate, move out of an area I had felt safe in before that.”

A report, From Torment to Tyranny: Enhanced Persecution in Uganda Following the Passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014, found that, in 2012, 19 cases of persecution perpetrated against Ugandan LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning) people were reported.

This figure had, from December 20 2013 to May 1 2014, shot to 162.

This, the report noted, “represents an increase of between 750% and 1 900% on previous years

— an increase which can only be explained by the passage of the