Anti-gay Ugandan tactic: Abusive, worthless anal exam

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

Jackson Mukasa, left, and Kim Mukisa (AP photo courtesy of The Guardian)

The defense team for two Ugandans charged with homosexual activity is preparing to counter any evidence produced by the prosecution from an anal exam that was conducted on one of the defendants.

Click on the image for the blog's list of 168 people in prison or awaiting trial for homosexuality. — Click on the image for the blog’s list of 168 people in prison or awaiting trial for homosexuality.

Anal exams are used against LGBT people in Africa and the Middle East by officials who hope the tests will produce evidence of same-sex intercourse. Activists oppose anal exams as both unreliable and abusive or even a form of torture.
Defendants Kim Mukisa, 24, a gay man, and Jackson Mukasa, 19, a transgender woman, face the possibility of a life sentence if convicted in a trial scheduled to begin in Kampala on June 12.
Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum – Uganda (HRAPF), which arranged for the legal representation for Mukisa and Mukasa, said:

“The state will most probably rely on character evidence and use the results of an anal exam which was done on one of the accused persons. The defence team has access to all the police statements, and is ready to challenge the charge, and the evidence if the matter comes to trial.”

Anal exams have previously aroused protests:
In 2012, the Lebanese physicians’ association denounced them as a form of torture — and as “medically and scientifically useless” in determining sexual activity.
In 2013, over defense objections, a magistrate presiding over the trial of two Zambian men accepted the testimony of a medical assistant who concluded that an anal exam showed that the men had engaged in homosexual activity.
Also in 2013, Egyptian authorities ordered anal exams of nine people arrested on homosexuality-related charges, but learned nothing from the exams. Activist/commentator Scott Long said, that the exams “are abusive and torturous, devoid of any medical value.”
In 2011, four men in Cameroon were arrested on homosexuality charges and forced to undergo anal exams. At least two of them were convicted, though results from the anal exams were worthless.
“Like most of the people prosecuted for homosexuality in Cameroon, there was no evidence against them,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Neela Ghoshal.
See the following articles for background on the Mukasa-Mukisa case: