By TesfaNews,
Ethiopia, through its Minister of Women, Children and Youth Affairs, condemns Uganda for passing the anti-gay law in the country.
Zenebu Tadesse, the Ethiopian minister, on Monday, has taken to twitter shortly after President Yoweri Museveni signed the anti-homosexuality bill in to law that punishes gay sex up to life in prison.
Zenebu tweeted: “There is no place for hate, discrimination in my beloved Africa. It’s not Governments’ business to make dress code or anti-gay laws #Uganda.”
Probably of more significant for the tweet was because it just followed the threat from Britain to cut foreign aid to Uganda.
The irony here is Ethiopia itself have already passed a draconian anti-homosexuality law that criminalizes same-sex acts with up to 15 years of imprisonment.
In addition, under its anti-terrorism law anyone who states what the government deems terrorism (which can include human rights criticism) can be imprisoned for 20 years, without a warrant.
Its anti-advocacy law also bars charities and nongovernmental organizations that receive more than 10 percent of their funding from abroad from participating in activities that advance human rights and the promotion of equality.
Essentially, these three laws taken in total have effectively prohibits foreign LGBT-related activism whilst in the same breath, it welcomes international religious groups that preaches homophobia – worst form of discrimination.
Therefore, Minister Tadesse’s rhetoric against Uganda on a matter that her country equally condemned for is simply outrageous. One wonders if the growing political difference between the two countries on the conflict in South Sudan was reason for such shameful latest attack.
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UPDATE:
The honorable Ethiopian Minister later today denied about her previous comments and in fact said her twitter account was hacked by unknown person. Odd is, the minister used that same allegedly “hacked” twitter account to refute her previous tweets on Uganda. For the record, we are posting both the original remarks (that we copied before it was deleted) along with the denial from the same twitter account of the honorable Ethiopian minister.
This is how it reads:
“This is to notify that the Honorable Minister’s account was hacked by unknown person(s). We are rectifying the matter. (1/2)” . A second tweet that follows says, “Please disregard all other tweets sent from this account meanwhile, as they are not from the Honorable Minister. (2/2)”
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