Nicholas Opiyo

thumb|Nicholas Opiyo Nicholas Opiyo (born November 15, 1980) is a Ugandan human rights lawyer and campaigner for civil rights and political freedoms. He is the executive director of Chapter Four Uganda. Quotes If, or should I say when, the current status quo changes in Uganda, we’ll have to live with its proponents. Besides the very few members of the ruling elite who can flee the country, the vast majority of its supporters have nowhere else to go. Uganda is our only home. They, and their families, will be here. It therefore behooves the supporters of the current establishment to take a long-term view, and to educate themselves, that patriotism is not a forced love of the country, but our ability to accommodate each other in our diversity - knowing that power is transient, a revolving door - and that our collective security lies in our abilities to accommodate each other. The best way to recommit ourselves to a new path is to remember that past and not re-erase it. I believe that the core of the Christian faith is about love,” Opiyo said. “What would Jesus do? Would he stone a gay person, or would he love them? Fifty-four percent of all schools are Christian-run education institutions. Religion is deeply part of the curriculum so much that teaching of sexual education in schools can be stopped. Uganda was known for its progressive HIV policy until religious schools began to have influence on the state. *They completely reversed our HIV approach to emphasize abstinence, to not have sex before marriage, which scientifically is not prevention. There are people now who can address the public and say, ‘I’m a gay man. The unseen, the unreported, the unwritten discrimination in the shop you go to, in the medical center you go to, on the bus you take or on the motor bike you take into town. That breaks your spirit. Nothing has changed much. The deep sense of homophobia in Uganda remains unchanged. In any case, it’s only been made worse by this ruling, because the debate has been reopened in a more bitter and fierce manner than we’ve seen before. To be positive, certain incidental things that are good will happen because of the ruling. First, individuals and organizations that have been facing arrest, intimidation or investigation will now have all those cases against them dropped, because the very foundation for these cases has now been declared unlawful. Organizations that have been closed under the [Anti-Homosexuality Act] will now have their operations resume without the fear of the law constricting their work. Even if parliament is resolved, as they are now, to reintroduce the law … they will at least pay attention, some attention to the issues that we have raised in our petition, and perhaps have a somewhat watered down or even—I’m hoping—progressive law in that regard. He talks about the status of LGBT rights There has been a growing influence of American evangelical ideologies in the policies of government in Uganda. The examples are plenty in Uganda—in the HIV/AIDS campaign, Uganda was praised for its response to the HIV/AIDS campaign because it had the message for condom use. External Category:Lawyers from Uganda Category:1980 births Category: living people