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Uganda’s first openly gay bar, Sappho Islands closed down last Sunday after just over a year in operation.
Jacqueline Kasha the Ugandan LGBTI activist who was instrumental in setting up Sappho Islands told behind the Mask in Kampala that she is determined to open another one soon.
The bar was reportedly closed down because the landlady complained about the appearance of revellers who frequented the venue. The seemingly spooked landlady was quoted as saying, “The bar brings people who look strange.”
The closure of the bar continues to highlight Uganda’s homophobic tendencies. Many people are denied rental accommodation because of their suspected or actual sexual orientation.
Kasha, the leader of human rights group Freedom and Roam Uganda, said on Wednesday in Kampala that the closure of Sappho Island arising from complaints by the landlady would not stop gays from having a social life in Uganda and promised a new bar would be opened.
Kasha said “The closure of Sappho doesn’t mean it’s the end of us having a social space. The way I managed to open Sappho in the first place is the way I will open it up elsewhere.”
She said she was not giving up on her dream of creating a social space for the LGBTI community.
A defiant Kasha said, “More than ever I am very determined. The next one will be bigger and even better. It’s one way of intimidating us but we shall overcome.”
Sappho Island was situated in Ntinda, a middle class Kampala neighbourhood. When BTM visited the place on Wednesday afternoon, there were sign posts advertising for new tenants to come and occupy the premises.
Once a lively and cordial welcoming hide out with immense ambience, Sappho now rests in ruins. The grass thatched hut has been pulled down to make way for new tenants. The entrance gate is closed.
But the Sappho Island rainbow coloured signpost continued to mark the entrance.
Until last Sunday the bar was one of the best known hang out spots for Uganda’s gay community and provided a focal point for the community. It was here for example murdered LGBTI activist David Kato’s funeral party set out from. According to a BBC report filed last year it was “where gay people feel safe, where they can be themselves.”
The closure of Sappho Island also highlights the fear among some Ugandans created by the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 in which every person is meant to report a suspected gay person within 24 hours.
Although the bill has stalled in Uganda’s Parliament, many Ugandans who are not keenly following the development of the bill, think the proposed bill is already law and enhances their earlier homophobic tendencies
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Breaking News, Gay Clubbing, Human Rights Monitor, Uganda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Dear Coleagues, we are concerned with the violation of people’s rights on the basis of their social, political, economic, cultural orientation and we shall continue to condemn such violations
Human rights are inherent and can not be granted. Therefore rights of individuals or groups of individuals to associate and assemble must be respected
Am waiting for the Anti-Gay bill, i cant say anything now
Dear Colleagues,
In my own opinion, i would like to differ from Mr. Kahigwa. Lets stop hiding behind Human rights to erode our morals! Rights go with responsibility and one’s rights should not violate other people’s rights. In my own view, the land lady was right if she evicted them on principle that she cannot accept their behavior. Lets not support moral decadence in the name of imported human rights! Remember; the bible is also against such behavior!!!!!
it is unfortunate that we have people in this country who have lost their moral conscious like kihigwa. what are human rights? for instance can ugandans start shitting every where because they feel like doing it and so be left to enjoy that as a human right?
ugandans, think straight and stop pretending
the population of women is enormous so have sexual relations with women and for women, the number of men has not run out for you to resort to relations with fellow ladies. as we strife to achieve our human rights, lets respect the law of nature. THE ASS IS NOT FOR SEX
gay rights are human rights. I will put this in Luganda ( nina eddembe okweebaka negwenjagala- i have a right to sleep with whoever i like).
to hell with your religious dogma!! if the ancient israelies equated earthquake in sodomy and gomorrah, to acts of gayism, then this is modern times. we know earthquakes are caused by a shift in earth’s crust… ok!! and that’s why that disgusting pastor was sating the haiti earth quake is linked to voooddoo worship!!! Non sense– keep your religious dogmas to yourself and keep your opinions, GAYS will prevail!!!! Besides we have the money!!!!
you also keep your opinion of human or dembe rights to yourself, what is having money but leaking in the ass because of constant penetration and you go around emitting foul smell and padding your asses with excess use of perfume. if you think it is right why not leave that perfume alone?. if you want to go on with your vices, do it but fate knows that the sixth or seventh sense is telling you that what you are doing is wrong. money means nothing my dear if the conscious is not clear. i pray that you help and don’t corrupt other innocent minds. God bless you
Sarah, politely choose to hear from us who are proud of gay sex as thus:
for your information anal sex is sweet. it is tighter than most over sized vaginas. bEsides, the ass can be trained to get an erection and gets sweeter with time. women are fucked in anus and they do not leak, sarah why are you so self fish and so bent to deny gay men the priviledge of having tight sex which is sweet. if you ever test anal sex your life will move to venus. in fact you should try. do you know the clit and the tight anal being rubbed slowly and gently in quality time. Choose to hear and live life. Leave dogmas to the sempas and males because they benefit. About money, oh yes, we are loaded!!!
There is a Luganda saying : ” Omuliro gw’okya bbiri- nga mwaagalana” meaning as long as you are in love both vaginal and anal sex is ok. In fact for the last 700 years Buganda has developed tolerance and diversity to pluralism, including sexual orientation. That’s why the Sempas are using Bahati a westerner whose culture was dismantled by the colonisers to push the nauseating anti homosexuality bill. In Buganda culture, every girl experiences lesbian sex pleassure when they about elongating their clitoris and labia at 12-17 years in preparation to becoming ‘ women’. this practice has been there for centuries, and still today and Baganda across the board- social,political , economic status practice it. it is done by elderly women called sengas who train the young girls. Sarah, if you have not experience lesbian sex, or you experienced its pleassure by default, choose to experience it again. For example you can start by sucking your friends nipples and you will learn what others have enjoyed for centuries
Banange! lesbianism and homosexuality is a nasty game which the Bible condemns ‘
No wonder we are in the last days which the Bible talks about that all this will happen and then the son of man will appear again so i’m not surprised by the foolish Ugandans who support it and in the actual sense even a female dog can’t have sex with a fellow female dog but i’m surprised that it happen to some foolish people like Nakiganda,the so called omuzinyi omulungi and the others of the sort,BUT do all what you are doing knowing that HEAVEN IS THERE AND HELL IS THERE so choose where u want to go and please stop spoiling the young generation and whoever want to do that should go to the western countries and not here in Uganda for Uganda is pure and we don’t want to contaminate it with evil.GBU
Namubiru, i do not aspire to go your so-called heaven. Heaven and hell is a fantasy created by christian dogma, which is unfortunate. There was a time the Pope declared that if you die before baptism, or if you died before being christain ( in Uganda’s case since 1887 when the first christain missionaries arrived) you would not go to either hell or heaven, you would be in limbo. Many cahtholics ‘died’ to defend this nasty concept. but now the new pope decided that people today are knowldgeable and with alot of information, and removed the limbo concept. ONLY syphilis can order me where to or not DEEP my dick, not you NAMUBIRU. Women tend to believe these crafty religious dogmas….. and trust me they are massively raped in churches by pastors. But they seem to enjoy the rapes. KIBWERETE raped many women, strangled and burried them even in his munyonyo house….. because they think the gospel is God talking, Oh shit!!!
About lesbian sex, Namubiru you know how baganda women ‘pull’ their clitoris. And you also know that girls sometimes experience their first orgasm during this pulling and continue it on their own, outside Senga’s supervision. is this not pleassureable for you?
Namubiru am sorry for you because even you guys pretend to be rightful and God fearing while your sleeping on the thorn, your facing a challenge but you can not speak out boldly because of God have you ever seen on God how can i prophesy for someone i have never ever seen in my life leave along dreams. I can not believe in a person like me because also he is a human. I have no proof that he God is a man or a woman because christians have a saying that he is my husband on which deal they do not know whether he/she. Now i do not know whether he was a gay, lesbian or bisexual. BUT I KNOW GOD IS GAY BECAUSE EVERY TIME, THERE IS A RAINBOW ON THE SKY, GOD IS MAKING GAY LOVE/SEX
Nakiganda, Omuzinyi, Mutebbi, Kayigwa , you would not be in existence with Gay theory. Reproduction is natural thing that happens and in God’s will that a man must do it with a woman. Now your parents were not bustards to have sex as man and woman to conceive you i wish you didn’t exist. It’s love for Money that keeps you guys, a lot of money is kept for those who accept gay by a group of satanist, do your research and stop being lazy and swallowing what comes your way, you may blindly swallow something that you will be forced to spit out in a hard way. there is difference between normal sexual desires and sexual perversion. with perversion you can even sleep with a dog, a hen, a horse which you people are suffering from, just like a snooker who knows smoking brings lung cancer but still smokes. you know well its un natural act and has its bad consequences. And the aggressive tone from all of you is a sign of the uncomfortablity with what you know is not real. Galilewo never lodged war to tell the truth that the world is round. Give a theory around it with facts of reproduction please, leave aside adoption or tubal i mean natural. The obscenity coming from some of your mouths is clear that pornography and perversion is at work. The Devil is a liar, he can create pleasure even in the eye or ear soon you will abandon Anus and go for those areas , before you realize it you are in Mutabika hospital.
Gays gives me facts based on scientific findings to justify reproduction and our continuous existence.
Cancer cure…
[...]Behind the Mask | The Voice of Africa's LGBTI Community – UGANDA’S FIRST OPENLY GAY BAR CLOSES AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR[...]…
peace, look at the national policy guidelines and service standards for sexual and reproductive health and rights for uganda, a copy if available at ministry of health and WHO library. sexuality is expressed in perception, fantasy and so many other ways. genuinely if vaginas that ovulate are penetrated, what’s wrong with anal sex…. i know you will mention feaces, but just like menstral blood, feaces is food that has been in the body for some time. Both are going out and of the same thoughts and perceptions. so peace, enjoy the priviledges of gay sex. i can offer a free dildo for you and yo pal to try out
Namubiru, Peace could you please be motivated with the on going lives and change your perceptiveness instead blaming Nakiganda for my sexuality? could you believe that many women are being raped in their marriages because of the environment/society? men married to women because society to make you blind and the same time they sleep with fellow women even in Christianity its there. Stop keeping on pretending while your dieing people for us we have started to advocate for your rights so that you can enjoy life.
Namubiru, Peace could you please be motivated with the on going lives and change your perceptiveness instead of blaming Nakiganda for her sexuality? could you believe that many women are being raped in their marriages because of the environment/society? men married to women because society to make you blind and the same time they sleep with fellow women even in Christianity its there. Stop keeping on pretending while your dieing people for us we have started to advocate for your rights so that you can enjoy life.
gay sex is the sweetes
I hear a lot about gay sex being sweet. I wish to try it for only once but am afraid if indeed it is so sweet as you said I may end up being gay forever. I need advice!!!
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