“Uganda security forces raided a shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth last week and arrested 23 people, including a nurse and the shelter’s executive director, charging them with unwarranted COVID-19 offenses after considering charging them under anti-homosexuality laws.
“Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) reports: “The Police first considered charging them with having carnal knowledge against the order of nature under section 145 of the Penal Code, but this was later changed to doing ‘a negligent act likely to spread infection of disease’ contrary to Section 171 of the Penal Code Act, and ‘disobedience of lawful orders’ under section 117 of the Penal Code Act. This was in the context of the Presidential Directives on COVID-19 which incidentally require people to stay indoors, the exact thing that the people at the shelter were doing.”
“Two people were beaten upon arrest. Three have been released on bond, “one of whom was the nurse and the other two for medical reasons.” and the other 20 have been sent to prison until April 29 when they are scheduled to appear in court.”
Friends from Bulungi Tree Shade Friends Meeting in Jinja, Uganda, are under siege. They are the only welcoming and affirming unprogrammed Friends Meeting in east and central Africa. Their co-clerk is transgender.
38 of their members have had to flee for their lives, and two have been killed, including the clerk of a new worship group that was being formed. One of the founders was beaten and left for dead – he had been finding safe houses for LGBTQ folks. We managed to transport him to Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, where he underwent 11 hours of brain surgery (he was suffering from intracranial hemorrhaging), then went back for another operation on his spine. The clerk was rescuing a transgender man on a motorcycle when she suffered a motorcycle accident, with much internal bleeding. Also to Aga Khan. LGBTQ folks don’t dare use a hospital in Uganda.
Below are two stories from last week. Friends Ugandan Safe Transport is a project of Olympia Friends Meeting. It is organized like the Underground Railroad. To date, 2,122 people have been helped to flee, including six children and eight allies. We need your help!
“The Sound of a Police Truck Speaks Terror” – by Solomon Ntanga
The sound of a police patrol truck speaks terror and fear to me. To me the sighting of a police officer, uniform, and even the word “police” itself are signs of danger. Twelve years later, I am still traumatized, and, yes, I still suffer nightmares.
On the cold evening of Thursday the 21st August 2008, I was picked up from my boyfriend’s house by a group of six policemen. Did I say boyfriend? Actually NOT!!! He was an undercover homophobic police officer, who has a life time commitment to wipe homosexuality out of Uganda He picked me up from a local secret point where we always hung out. He used to make a scene buying us food and drinks, and he quickly won our trust. We didn’t suspect that the personal questions he was asking were meant to gather more facts about the gay community in our area. Because I was somehow desperate and I needed a place to stay, I managed to befriend him and I really opened up to him, quickly sharing my story with him. He was really “generous”; yes, generous with hidden motive and a dark secret, and yes he hates gay people, helps to get them arrested, secretly arranges mob justice and lynching, he frames them so it looks like they have been stealing, and, then, even before the police arrive, they are stoned to death or burnt to ashes. Richard is a self-proclaimed pro when it comes to hunting down gay people. He is proud that he has blood on his hands, and he has mastered the art of preying on gay people who are homeless, on-drugs, desperate, and broke. He has the resources to operate all over Uganda and he knows exactly what to do. He is well-connected to the right people in the government and he comes from the ruling tribe in western Uganda. He doesn’t believe in the rule of law, in his own statement “the parliament and all the so called laws won’t stop the spreading of homosexuality in Uganda, there is need for more brave strong men like me to hunt them down and wipe them out before they spread the “disease” to others.”
My ordeal started immediately I entered Richard’s car to head to his apartment, he handcuffed me and pushed a dirty cloth in my mouth to shut me up. He insisted I tell him about everything, including names, addresses, phone numbers of each and every gay person in our community. He made it clear he would later kill me, so I was ready to face my Creator. He beat me so hard without getting any more information. Later in the night, I really can’t tell but I must have gone into a coma. I don’t really remember much and don’t know if hours or days had passed, I was then picked up by yet another hostile group of policemen who really enjoyed inflicting pain. I still find it hard to forgive them, even though I strongly believe in forgiveness and peace.
In police custody, I suffered a broken leg and I lost an eye. They worked on my file so that I could be taken to court but the police officer in charge of the police station mentioned that in the state I was, I was going to attract both local and international media so taking me to court in that state, wasn’t a good idea. For two days they openly discussed either to take me to a hospital or do away with me. My life was being discussed as if was a chicken in regard for dinner. Some questioned who would pay my hospital bills. Richard insisted killing me now with all the information I had would be a big loss. He suggested that I get treatment and maybe I would cooperate and give them more information. That’s how I was dumped at a government hospital but since nobody was paying my medical bills, the hospital suspended all treatment and I was asked to leave That’s how I survived. Ye, I am still full of terror, disfigured, and lame, but I am happy to be alive.
It has taken me almost 12 years to flee from Uganda, thanks to friends of the Friends Uganda Safe Transport Fund.
Having escaped from Uganda, I am now 28, living here taking it day by day, I now have hopes that maybe one day I will be somebody. Those guys wanted to kill me but I know am out of reach for them to make decisions on how to kill me. It’s not easy living in hiding for 12 years.
God bless you all! Solomon Ntanga
—
“I wish times could just change” – by Nasali Sheila, March 15, 2020
My friends call me Nasa, but my full name is Nasali Sheila 20 years. I was born to peasant farmers who strongly believed that I should be married off, or to be more accurate “sold off”. At the age of 14, I was married off to a wealthy man Haji Mohammad Bin Ali, who was 67. I became his fourth wife. He happily paid my family three cows, five goats, several chickens, several kilos of sugar, rice, salt, oil lamps, clothes, and other goods to my “family”. I was sold off like an item.
On my wedding night, he raped me, and by the time I gave birth when I was 16 I had developed fistula. I hated men and has taken me a lifetime to heal. And I hate my family; they just never cared.
From my early childhood, I developed an attraction towards girls. By the time I was finally sold off, I knew I was not straight, and by the time I gave birth, I knew I was a lesbian.
When I gave birth to my daughter Shamira, I started plotting on how to disappear without a trace. That chance came when the man who bought m., had to go to Mecca on hajj.
I just disappeared with Shamira, living a life on the run for years. Just last week, however, the local FM radio stations opened a fresh war on the people in my town, calling on the locals to destroy homosexuality in their communities since the government is like failing to do it. They called on churches and mosques to hand over gay people. This caused a lot of panic among us and thank Allah, we knew who to run to in this town. Till lately I have been living with my girl friends and when words went around that we were going to be attacked, we immediately called the local “conductor” because he had earlier assessed us in the process of helping us to flee from Uganda – to leave and go live in another country where we could be safe and free from the daily danger in which we live. We called the conductor, but currently he doesn’t have the resources to help us leave nor can he feed us as he looks around for the financial resources to help us flee. We decided that if death is going to meet us, it should find us at the local shelter, not in the township.
It is now coming to one full week, we are started, I have a crying child, no food, no safe water, no light. The conductor manages to get us one meal every two days. We are now sick and diseased, am so worried my baby might die before help finds us.
We are now 85 waiting. We lost one of our trans friends. day we become more desperate and hope is quickly fading, we are so worried what if the conductor abandons us and this leads to mass killings?
We are appealing to whoever can to help us flee We also wish to live but in my country life is cheap and one can easily be killed. I wish times could just change.
Help, Help. Nobody has ever gone broke by helping, we need your help to flee.
Nasa
If you are able to financially support the work of Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund, please go to our DONATE page. Thank you!
Olympia Monthly Meeting is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Cash and non-cash contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of applicable law. Our Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 94-3145171.
I was born on the 25th March 1999 in the wrong body. I was named Isabella Nakintu. At the age of nine, everything indicated that I am a boy in a girl’s body. But since the culture demanded that I should be a girl, I had very limited support from my family. It became an intense personal problem. Later, I considered suicide as a solution but, as a Christian, the thought of taking my own life was overwhelming. Any attempts against the will of my parents were met with extreme violence, cultural rituals, flogging, and rejection.
At the age of 15, I made a difficult decision to go my own way; and street life gave me more comfort. This hard-knock life greeted me with crime, drugs, and prostitution and, by 2017; I had contracted HIV. I remember being arrested by the police in 2018 and the police had to undress me to ascertain my sex. Some were calling me a girl and others a boy. One police officer raped me in the night in the name of giving protective custody. Without any relatives interested in my plight, it took months before I was given a police bond, which I jumped. In the police statement I had made, I had clearly indicated that I am transgender, which was an automatic case of self-incrimination. I became a fugitive from our gruesome laws.
A
fellow street mate hinted to me that there is a welcoming church which
can help me hide away from the police and my family (by 2019, my family
wished my death and attempts were being made to kill me by rat poison
because of my gender and sexual orientation). After months of
searching, I was finally connected to a Friends’ group. My friend said
it was a church, but it was actually a Quaker Friends Meeting. They
pray differently and at first I thought they were strange. But that
didn’t really matter – they welcomed me as I am. They accepted me and
never judged me or even asked me questions. This is the place where I
belonged, this was the very first time I wasn’t trying to be something
different. It was me and I felt the comfort of changing my name from
Isabella Nakintu to Isaiah Kintu.
Isaiah Kintu
The
events of late 2019 again changed things around. A Minister in Uganda
announced the re-tabling of the “Kill the Gays” law. This meant that we
had to go into more confined hiding in safe houses. The media are
strictly controlled in Uganda and are ordered not to mention or report
any state-sponsored homophobia, though somehow once in a while such
news makes it to the international media. However, when a government
minister makes a statement and introduces a law to kill gay people, the
local people in rural villages and elsewhere understand this to mean
they can take up arms, stones, machetes, sticks, etc. to beat and kill
any suspected LGBTQI in mob justice (lynching).
After
hiding in safe houses for weeks and losing one of our friends in a mob
justice attack, more than 60 of us were safely helped to flee from
Uganda to a safe harbor. Though I am happy for now, my expected final
destination will be …. where I can get a job and start working, go back
to school, and rebuild my life.
I
wish to thank all the Quakers in the U.S. who are organized under the
Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund, who funded my escape and those of
my friends. You are miracle workers, and you saved our lives. Now we can
breathe. Thanks AGAIN & AGAIN!
If you are able to financially support the work of Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund so that we can help us fund more people like Isaiah who need to get out of Uganda because of their gender identity or sexual orientation, please go to our DONATE page. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your assistance with Friends Ugandan Safe Transport (FUST) in this hour of great need. To bring you up to date, in October 2019 a bill was introduced into the Uganda Parliament calling for criminal penalties against LGBTQ people, including the death penalty. While the bill itself is not likely to be acted upon anytime soon, it reopened an active phase for expressions of homophobia and hatred throughout Uganda. In eastern Uganda alone, we know of five murders (with our contacts having witnessed two of them.) Eight radio stations and a tv station are airing anti-gay propaganda around the clock, and homophobic sermons are being preached from the pulpit, including by at least one Catholic bishop. People are being beaten in the streets or at markets, forced to leave school and families and are living in a constant climate of fear. We would note that little of this is allowed out by the press/media, which is pretty much confined to the capital Kampala.
Through your help and courageous action on the part of our “conductors,” 113 gay, lesbian, and transgender people, (including 38 members of Bulungi Tree Shade Friends Meeting – a welcoming and affirming Quaker Meeting in eastern Uganda; ‘bulungi’ means “welcome’) – have left Uganda, including 67 on Christmas Day itself. They are now all at their interim destinations, where they are well-housed, fed (many of them had been virtually starving), receiving medical care, and provided with services that will help them reach their final destinations around the world. Please note that funds from FUST are not used for this purpose, but only to facilitate the transport of those leaving Uganda, and for medical expenses of conductors and other directly involved in these efforts. Among the 113 were four gay members of the Ugandan Presidential Guard!
But it has been hard! And will continue to be so. Four “safe houses” had been set up in eastern Uganda. As there was not enough food, one transgender woman named Thelma ventured out of one of the houses to buy some bread at a market about a mile away, where she was beaten to death. (She had also been one of the conveners of the Buikwa Friends Worship Group.) Another individual, having just witnessed a lynching of a lesbian woman, was transporting a transgender person to safety when she was involved in a very serious motorcycle accident. She was transported by ambulance to Agha Khan Hospital (from experience they don’t trust Ugandan hospitals) in Nairobi, Kenya, where she underwent seven hours of surgery for internal injuries. She is now back in Uganda and recovering well.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of Robert Mboise (one of the co-founders of Bulungi Tree Shade Friends Meeting) who had been helping individuals reach the safe houses. Robert was attacked, beaten, and left for dead. He was found the next day and eventually sent via ambulance to Agha Khan, where he underwent 10 hours of surgery to relieve intracranial hemorrhaging. The operation was a success, but just the beginning, as he has a major spinal cord injury and is likely to require additional emergency surgery. Robert is one of the most extraordinary people you might ever meet, and we are committed to doing whatever is necessary to assist in his recovery.
Meanwhile, our conductors have a confirmed list of 85 people awaiting transport. The safehouses are currently closed as there is no money for food or fuel, and with floods sweeping Uganda there are now cholera outbreaks that can easily be spread among people living in close quarters. So we are working on more fundraising efforts to get these people out, and we expect there will be more.
You have collectively already done so much! Since we started in 2014 when the first anti-gay legislation was introduced, with your financial support some 2,057 people in justified fear for their lives (with 12 murders along the way) left Uganda and are rebuilding their lives around the world.
We are blessed that we are able to do this work, and so grateful for your ongoing assistance in doing it.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity to serve.
Gabi Clayton and Kathleen O’Shaunessy – Co-Managers
Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund – Olympia Friends Meeting
Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund is a project of Olympia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a 501(c)(3) religious organization (tax identification number: #94=3145171). Donations to Olympia Friends Meeting are tax-deductible to the extent allowed under the Internal Revenue Code. No goods or services have been rendered.
This is the letter we have been sending out this week to many of our supporters:
December 7, 2019
Dear
Friends and Supporters,
It has
been over two years since we last updated you on Friends’ Ugandan Safe
Transport (FUST). This is because two of
our conductors felt they needed to back away from active participation in the
project due to stress and personal safety concerns — which is certainly
understandable given their longevity and dedication to the project. FUST
continued with only one conductor during that time and we didn’t feel an urgent
need for active fundraising again until now. The Ugandan government is reviving
the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2013 which was repealed in 2014.
The
proposed legislation calls for the death penalty for LGBTQ citizens. As a result, many LGBTQ Ugandans are in desperate
need to get out of the country, so we are gearing up our fundraising efforts
again. Currently, we are in direct
contact with the two Ugandan transport allies, both of whom we know personally
and have worked with before.
CURRENT STATUS AND REQUEST:
Within
the last four months, five members of the LGBTQ community have been
murdered. One of our friendly allies was
severely beaten three weeks ago and is in the hospital in Nairobi awaiting
surgery. We are in urgent need of funds
to pay for his surgery and medical expenses as well as to transport passengers
to safety that are being held in hiding. There are currently 67 passengers in
hiding awaiting transport. Our primary
conductor has successfully transported 42 people to the border in the past
three days. This is a very risky, remarkable accomplishment.
Our
Ugandan friends report that fear and panic within the LGBTQ community is
extremely high. We are again asking for
your support in this time of urgent need.
Thanks to you, our donors, we have raised $190,000 and safely
transported 1990 passengers since FUST began in 2014.
As most
of you know, FUST is a project initiated by Olympia Friends’ Meeting (Quakers)
in April 2014. It has the support of
more than 25 Friends’ Monthly and Yearly Meetings, several other faith
communities and many individual donors.
It is a project conducted by and controlled by Ugandans for Ugandans. Our role is to provide the financial support
which allows conductors to do their work.
No funds are used for staffing or administration except for postage and
mailing supplies. To date, 14 countries
have accepted LGBTQ Ugandan refuges. We
hope to expand this number.
If you
have question or would like to know more, please visit our website which
provides background information, FAQs, updates and links to other relevant
sites We also invite you to visit our
blog at http://friendsugandasafetransport.org/blog/ and read the personal, heartfelt
stories of some of the refuges you helped be transported to safety. You may also wish to view a February 2016 local
television program, “Bold, Friendly Action to Help LGBTQ Ugandans Flee to
Safety,” done by Olympia Fellowship for Reconciliation (FOR). You can watch it on the homepage of our
website: http://friendsugandansafetrasport.org.
We are
most grateful and appreciative of your support and donations. We hope you will continue to support FUST in
these most critical times.
With
warm regards and good wishes during this holiday season.
Gabi Clayton and Kathleen O’Shaunessy Co-mangers, Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund
While Friends Ugandan Safe Transport (FUST) has not been very active in the last few months, we are still in operation, working with one amazing Ugandan transporter. This morning he put in a plea for funds to help move two men out of the country.
Brian and Edward, ages 27 and
24, are gay Ugandan soldiers who belonged to the presidential elite guard.
They deserted because of severe harassment based on their sexual orientation and have now been in hiding with the FUST transporter for two months, waiting for us to come up with the funds to get them out of Uganda.
It will cost $370.00 USD to
do that – $185.00 for each person – and so far we have raised $55.00.
Note: This was sent to me from HM, a Ugandan conductor, on January 3rd and due to computer and other technical issues it was not posted then. My apologies.
— Gabi Clayton, FUST co-manager.
Chapter 2, Section 9 of the [US] Bill of Rights is clear. “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.” This is an echo of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified in 1868. But the South African constitution goes a step farther. “Everyone is equal before the law” is defined in subsection 3as follows…
“The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth”
It took a man in the late Nelson Mandela to raise up clear and proud to be counted to build a constitution which doesn’t only look at gays as LGBT but as humans like any other who are supposed to be protected by law.
This is 2016, happy new year everybody but when I ask myself what are we celebrating as LGBT? Yes there are achievements I can see, I can see some steps, I can see a ray of light in the dark black skyline. Will it take another Mandela to have an Africa which looks at the gays as fellow humans? NO!! It takes you and me. 2015 had many challenges but for the strong and courageous like FUSTF formerly FNUR they never say never, they are the ray of light. They have given us so much hope and too thousands they know their work is priceless. Despite the criticism and setbacks yet with limited resources, they have accomplished what a million strong men just dream of. Thanks FUSTF.
I can proudly say that over 1000 individuals who identify as LGBT have been helped to get to another destination where they feel safe and wants to start a new life. Uganda might not be directly involved in state sponsored homophobia but still its not safe for the “uncelebrated” openly gay people. Thousands still continue to suffer in the darkness and silence. Small charities may not be having the financial base do this alone but FUSTF has not given up on them as it keeps on doing whatever it takes to help those in need to cross to safety. We shall be forever grateful.
It always given this big wide smile when I travel to different countries and I come across some of the passengers who have gotten freedom through the hands of FUSTF. I can see hope, I can lives being rebuilt and I see a future for many.
To the supporters of FUSTF thanks for that unconditional love you have shown to the Ugandan LGBT.
Yes I know the burden still ahead us is big and challenging but I have never been so hopeful than I am now that with FUSTF more is possible and yes we are proud of this program.
To the many LGBT who wish to leave and start a new life in another country, I know help is on the way, I know FUSTF is human in its operations and they really care about you.
Between our Ugandan conductors there are 77 LGBTQ people in hiding waiting for funds to cover the cost of transporting them out of the country. Please help with a donation if you can.
Bold, Friendly Action to Help LGBTQ Ugandans Flee to Safety
Published on Dec 11, 2015 – Dennis Mills for FOR. Click the photo or here to watch the video: https://youtu.be/WX3-IeW38SQ
Glen Anderson interviews Kathleen O’Shaunessy, Alan Mountjoy-Venning, and Gabi Clayton about Olympia Friends Meeting’s Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund project.
“The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s January 2016 TV program lifts up a bold, compassionate, non-violent way to help people who are in danger because of the homophobic political culture in the African nation of Uganda. The action began with courageous, compassionate people within Uganda and is supported by Quakers and other people in Olympia WA USA and elsewhere.
“This month’s TV program explores a bold and courageous way that people in Uganda and elsewhere are protecting the lives and safety of people in Uganda who are endangered because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. People in Olympia and elsewhere are providing financial support to help endangered LGBTQ people escape from Uganda through the Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund. 1,194 persons have been transported to safety by December 5, 2015. Gabi Clayton mentioned that two of the “conductors” in Uganda have died.” https://www.facebook.com/FriendsUgandanSafeTransportFund
Media Island Monthly Benefit Brunch with
FRIENDS UGANDAN SAFE TRANSPORT FUND
Every month Media Island teams up with another social justice organization to sponsor a benefit brunch so we can learn about each other’s work. This month Media Island is teaming up with Friends Ugandan Safe Transport, which funds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans who are escaping from that oppressive country where their lives are in danger simply for who they are attracted to or for their gender identity.
Sunday, December 6, 2015 11 AM to 2 PM
Media Island − 816 Adams St SE − Olympia, WA
wheelchair accessible from the alley behind the house
For more information call Gabi Clayton, FUST Manager, Co-Clerk, Peace and Social Justice Committee, Olympia Monthly Meeting – (360) 888-5291. Or call Media Island, (360) 352-8526
“I fell in love with Kim at 19, we struggled to be together as a couple but hate, discrimination and fears would not just allow us be.
“Then we connected with an Organization which was working with Friends Ugandan Safe Transport. After 3 months of hiding we were finally able to leave Uganda in the dead of the night. On crossing the border I knew the long search for freedom was finally visible.
“Am grateful for the fearless transporter and a local coordinator who made us welcome once we left Uganda.
“My heart breaks for the many LGBTq who are still stuck or can’t leave Uganda. More Organizations like FUST should stand up and be counted for the good cause”
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Please donate to Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund so we can continue to help people like Tina and Kim leave the dangers they face in Uganda and find new lives in more welcoming countries.
Click the button to the left to use PayPal or a credit or debit card.
