On January 3, Steven Kabuye, an advocate for LGBTQ+ freedom in Uganda, was stabbed.
In a clinic outside of Kampala, Uganda, Steven Kabuye recovers from an anti-gay attack. (Guardian/Abubaker Lubowa photo courtesy of Reuters)
Steven Kabuye, a Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist, was repeatedly stabbed by anti-gay attackers on January 3 and was hospitalized in critical condition. Supporters have donated more than $5,000 to his cause.
Written by Kabuye:
Welcome, lovely allies and other activists in the fight for ensuring equality for all people, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
Human rights are not a battlefield, so those who uphold them shouldn’t keep dying out of an unavoidable sense of human responsibility!
For the sake of humanity and ensuring that all Ugandan LGBT people are exempt from the most lethal and dangerous anti-homosexuality rules in Uganda, #AHA, I nearly lost my life.
I give thanks to God that despite the severe harm, I am also alive. And I think that this will also happen.
However, I desperately need financial assistance for a number of reasons that I can’t list here, and I am confident that you will find it in your heart to generously support this admirable campaign and fundraiser.
May the great Lord richly thank each of you as you provide for my financial needs.
The assault was covered by Pink News:
According to sources close to Steven Kabuye, a well-known LGBTQ+ rights activist in Uganda, two gentlemen attacked him on January 3 after allegedly following him for several weeks.
Kabuye is depicted in graphic video footage on his X/Twitter account, lying in agony on the ground with a knife stuck in his stomach and his arm slashed available. He is also shown recovering from emergency surgery in drenched in blood in the hospital bed.
He was “stabbed to near suicide by mysterious assailants a few feet from our house as he was heading for work this morning,” according to Kabuye’s organization, Colored Voices Media Foundation- Truth to LGBTQ Uganda.
The senior director of Sexual Minorities Uganda and one of Uganda’s most well-known LGBTQ+ protesters, Frank Mugisha, stated on social media that “hatred and hate crimes have no place in Uganda.”
Speaking to Reuters, Mugisha blamed the assault on Uganda’s anti-gay laws.
He asserted that the environment in which such problems are occurring was created by the law’s ferocious hatred for physical immigrants.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, which President Yoweri Museveni signed into law in May, severely limits Uganda’s LGBTQ+ freedom.
For “aggravated” same-sex works, which include physical activity with disabled persons and those who are HIV positive, it imposes the death sentence.
According to The Guardian:
Since March 2023, Kabuye has been the target of suicide threats, he “told researchers who came to his side.” After traveling internationally in June, he had come back to Uganda for Christmas in December.
