The Kampala metropolitan police have launched an investigation into claims that one of the popular youth rights’ activists, who started the popular march against Eacop, is a top promoter of homosexuality a crime once proven guilty attracts a 20 years’ imprisonment or death.
“A complainant reached out to us on May 6, and upon receiving this, we are planning to cross examine the victim and upon finishing that, we shall summon the accused but for now we opened a file to that matter,” Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala metropolitan deputy police spokesperson told this publication.
Bagiire Sharif, a former student of Kyambogo University was last week accused by Shafiki Kalyango, a climate activist and a student of the same University, of reportedly recruiting him into homosexuality.
Kalyango who was moved to report the case after numerous months of seductions from the accused told detectives that Bagiire has for months been calling him, offering gifts like money to lure him into the acts.
“Once we prove these allegations, we shall summon the culprit, and charge them before courts of law,” Owoyesigyire said.
A few weeks after the Parliament passed the Bill, President Museveni on May 26, 2023 signed into law one of the anti-homosexuality Act, 2023 which criminalised homosexuality by introducing a 20-year imprisonment for homosexuality, and death penalty for aggravated homosexuality.
Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as they are in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes much further in targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people.
It imposes capital punishment for some behaviour including having gay sex when HIV positive, and stipulates a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality.
Since the enactment of the law, at least 197 individuals were arrested in 122 cases between May 2023 and July 2025, according to the July 2025 report by the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF).
The report further indicated that 47 people were formally charged under the Act between September 2023 and May 2024, with several cases involving “aggravated homosexuality” charges.
This number, the report added, was much higher than the 17 cases of arrests for sexuality related reasons which the HRAPF’s legal aid clinic recorded in 2017, and 27 such arrests in the whole of 2022.
“Between May 2023 and May 2025, HRAPF documented a total of 365 cases of eviction of individuals from rented premises and/or villages purely based on presumed sexuality or gender identity. These incidents affected 443 persons,” read part of the report.
The accused Bagiire was not available for a comment by press time, but Kalyango told this publication that he opened a case on reference number 64/06/05/2026 after the accused bombarded him with several messages and phone calls.
“I am not alone, he has been texting many of our colleagues since we are in climate activism trying to recruit us into this satanic act which I and our colleagues couldn’t allow. We request the police to swing in action and arrest him because we have evidence,” he said.
