HOW NIGERIANS,GHANIANS, SOMALIS AND ERITRIANS BY-PASS LAWS TO SUFFOCATE UGANDA'S ECONOMY

INVESTIGATION

Uganda's economy has for the past fifteen years been going through turmoil and/or turbulent times leading it to being one if not the worse performing economy in the region.We must commend the work of the current Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) for the job weldone amid all the challenges.

The means,
 Money Tranfers
Mobile Money
 Tax Evasion (companies in real estate development, mineral development)
Genral Money Laundry
Cyber Attacks
Human Trafficking (adults,minors and professionals)

Legal link international (LLI) investigation team has intensively investigated the secret societies that launder money,illicit trade, cyber crimes PLUS Individuals (both national and foreign) that have crippled Uganda's economy in this report...request for it from kiggunduhenry78@gmail.com..for non members.... Members, the long awaited report findings CHECK YOUR INBOX or visit the secretariat.

France may set age of consent at 13 after man acquitted of raping 11 year old

The French government is considering setting the minimum age for sexual consent following a controversial decision by a jury to spare a man accused of raping an 11-year-old girl. The verdict has sparked a public outcry and calls to revise the law.

The bill, if adopted, will set a benchmark in French law on sexual violence, as it will for the first time define the age limit under which any sexual intercourse with a minor is legally considered rape.

“The question of the age below which the minor’s consent is presumed not to exist is crucial, because there are obviously extremely shocking and unacceptable situations,” French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said, as cited by RTL radio.

Regarding the age of consent, Belloubet said that the age of 13 “is worth considering,” while noting that the final decision in each case should lie within the discretion of the judges.

Marlene Schiappa, a junior minister for gender equality, argues that it should lie somewhere between 13 and 15 years.

“Below a certain age, it is considered that there can be no debate on the sexual consent of a child, and that any child below a certain age would automatically be considered to be raped or sexually assaulted,” Schiappa told BMF TV.

The need to amend the law was brought to light by the jury verdict in the case of a 30-year-old man who, back in 2009, allegedly lured an 11-year-old girl into a sexual relationship. Last week, the man, a Cape Verdean native, was tried by a jury court and acquitted after prosecutors, who were seeking eight years in jail for the defendant, failed to prove that the sex was non-consensual.

Under current French law, only sexual acts committed with the use of “violence, coercion, threat or surprise” are considered to be rape, regardless of the victim's age. Penalties are tougher if the victim is under the age of 15, but there is no minimum age of consent.

Following the encounter, the girl, who is of Congolese descent, became pregnant and subsequently gave birth to a baby which her family decided to place in foster care out of fear of being condemned in the community. The family took the case to court, but only years later.

It is the second case in less than two months that came under the media spotlight for what is viewed by some as a verdict too lenient for a suspect accused of sexually assaulting a minor. In late September, an 11-year-old girl reportedly followed a 28-year-old man into his flat north of Paris, where they repeatedly engaged in sexual acts. The girl’s mother said that her daughter was devastated by what happened to her, but was unable to put up any resistance as she was numb from shock.

Despite her mother’s claims that the 11-year-old was unable to defend herself, the prosecutors dropped the charges of rape and charged the perpetrator with sexual assault of a minor below the age of 15 instead, brushing off the girl’s legal team’s arguments that she was unable to surmise what was going on.

The French Criminal Code envisages a punishment of up to five years of incarceration for sexual offenses. For rape, offenders face a much harsher penalty of 15 years behind bars if the victim is 15 or older, and up to 20 years if the victim is a minor under 15.

Civil Society Condemns Criminalising of HIV

Civil society organisations working on HIV and human rights in Africa recently condemned the enactment of repressive laws which often include provisions that criminalise HIV transmission, non-disclosure and exposure.

The organisations delivered the statement at the 61st ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights in Gambia last month.

Some of these laws also often provide for compulsory HIV testing, the disclosure of HIV status, and automatic partner notification.

The director of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (Arasa), Michaela Clayton, said these provisions are overly broad, and disregard the best available scientific evidence. They fail to pass the human rights test of necessity, proportionality and reasonableness.

"Rather, they have the effect of exacerbating stigma, discrimination and prejudice against people living with HIV. These measures undermine both an effective public health response to the HIV epidemic, as well as the human rights of people living with HIV," Clayton said.

While there were no HIV-specific criminal laws at the start of the 21st century in sub-Saharan Africa, 31 countries have since then enacted overly broad or vague HIV-specific criminal statutes.

These laws and policies provide, among other things, for the criminalisation of HIV transmission, exposure and non-disclosure, despite the fact that in all of these countries, there are existing penal provisions which can be invoked in those rare cases of intentional HIV transmission.

The number of prosecutions continue to rise at an alarming rate in countries where HIV-specific criminal laws have been promulgated. To date, prosecutions have been documented in 16 countries.

Meanwhile, the executive director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, said they are concerned about the current advancements in the HIV response in Africa being threatened by the misguided use of criminal sanctions by countries.

"As they argue, 'control the spread of the HIV epidemic', Ramjathan-Keogh said these laws, policies and practices violate the rights of people living with HIV, and of all healthcare users to informed consent, bodily integrity, dignity, freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, and fair trial rights, amongst others.

"The protection of these rights is expressly provided for in Article 4 (bodily integrity), Article 5 (dignity), Article 7 (fair trial), and Article 16 (right to health) of the African Charter," Ramjathan-Keogh said.

Women living with HIV face surveillance and state control regarding their reproduction, family planning, childbirth, child feeding, and child-raising choices. In many contexts, HIV criminalisation laws, policies and practices have a disproportionately punitive effect on women, as evidenced by recent cases.

Ramjathan-Keogh gave the example of a woman living with HIV who was prosecuted for breastfeeding in Malawi. There are also numerous examples of the prosecutions of people living with HIV in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Nigeria, particularly women.

In patriarchal societies, it is women who already disproportionately face the burden of the HIV epidemic due to their inability to negotiate protective sexual intercourse in relationships, and are often the first to be tested for HIV.

The executive director of the Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance, Victor Mhango, however, recognised the positive developments made by some African countries due to consistent advocacy on the part of civil society. Two countries - Mauritius in 2007 and Comoros in 2014 - have strongly rejected HIV criminalisation.

"Mozambique revised its HIV law in 2014 to remove HIV criminalisation, and in Kenya, the High Court has ruled that section 24 of the HIV Prevention and Control Act 2006, which forced people with HIV to disclose their status to any 'sexual contacts', was contravening the Kenyan constitution which guarantees the right to privacy," Mhango said.

He said as HIV and human rights organisations, they were calling for the African Commission on Human and People's Rights to take leadership in protecting the rights of people living with and affected by HIV, including women living with HIV by

- Encouraging and reminding member states about their obligations under the African Charter and the Maputo Protocol, including resolutions adopted by the Commission.

- Reminding states of their duties and mandates to protect and promote the rights of people living with and affected by HIV, including women and girls who are vulnerable to HIV, by prioritising the urgent needs for access to justice and the upholding of the rights to bodily integrity, autonomy, and health.

- Calling on states to repeal laws that unjustly criminalise HIV transmission, exposure, and non-disclosure.

Forced Marriage, Incest made her commit Murder

Muhammad Tanssir, Pakistan (Legal Link International) — Aasia Bibi had warned her parents time and again that if they forced her to marry her cousin, a man she disliked, she would be capable of going to any length to exit the union. She was already in a relationship, she said, and should be allowed to marry the man of her choice.

Now, investigators in this tiny, remote island village in central Pakistan believe the recently married 21-year-old was enticed by her boyfriend in a plot to kill her husband, Mohammad Amjad, by poisoning his milk with rat killer. Amjad did not drink the milk, but his mother used the tainted liquid the following day to make a traditional yogurt drink that she then tragically served to 27 family members, including Amjad.

Amjad and 17 others were sickened and subsequently died at a district hospital, including eight children aged 7 to 12. Among the dead were Amjad's two brothers, his three sisters-in-law and some distant relatives.

"I repeatedly asked my parents not to marry me against my will as my religion, Islam, also allows me to choose the man of my choice for marriage but my parents rejected all of my pleas and they married me to a relative," Bibi told a judge at her initial hearing Oct. 31 following her arrest.

Aasia Bibi and her boyfriend Shahid Lashari were charged with murder and are scheduled to return to court Nov. 14. Pakistani police said Wednesday they also arrested Bibi's aunt, 49-year-old Zarina Begum, for her involvement in the alleged plot.

Local police chief Zulfiqar Ali said the deaths quickly drew the attention of police, who quietly began an investigation and were able to expose the plot. He said Aasia Bibi was among those who did not drink the traditional Lassi, which is made with water and yogurt.

"Her husband was in critical condition at a hospital and she looked as if nothing had happened and she was cool and calm at her home and it raised suspicions," he said.

Ali said police first arrested Lashari and he confessed to supplying the rat poison to his girlfriend. He said Lashari also told officers that Bibi's aunt, who used to arrange for the couple to meet at her home, was aware of the plot to kill Amjad.

Ali said that before detaining Aasia Bibi, police collected her cell phone data enabling investigators to surmise that she was in constant contact with Lashari after the attempted poisoning. He said Bibi confessed to her role in the killings upon seeing Lashari in hand-cuffs at a police station.

Relatives bringing condolences were still arriving in the dusty, isolated village on Tuesday when a legal link international investigator crossed the shallow Indus River to the island by boat. Sitting among the mourners on a cot in an open area, village elder Abdul Majid vowed to behead the newly married woman and her boyfriend if he got hold of them.

Majid said the couple, who were married in late July, deserved to be killed to restore the village's honor.

"If I see them, I will behead them with a wood saw," he said, as the jailed bride's father sat nearby.

Zohra Yousaf, a top human rights activist based in Karachi, said Aasia Bibi is among countless Pakistani women who are forced by their parents to marry against their wishes, but that it is rare for a wife to kill her husband. She said she believed Bibi's actions show that she suffers from depression and anxiety.

Many parents in Pakistan arrange marriages for their daughters against their will and nearly 1,000 Pakistani women are killed each year by close relatives in so-called "honor killings" for marrying against the family's consent or attempting to flee the forced unions.

According to a report released this year by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, "hundreds of women and girls were murdered in 2016 by family members on the pretext of defending the family honor." It is also common in Pakistan for village councils or elders to order killings or rapes in the name of honor.

In 2002, a village council ordered the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, a young woman who later took her rapists to court. The case gathered international attention and she later opened a school for rural girls.

Sitting in her mud-brick home in this village of just 45 dwellings about 450 kilometers (270 miles) south of Multan, Bibi's mother Zakia Begum sobbed Tuesday night, saying she was wrong to force her daughter to marry a man she did not like.

She urged other Pakistani parents to give their daughters the right to marry the person of their choice.

"I feel guilty and I think we should have not forced our daughter to marry Amjad as she did not like him," she told Legal Link International.

Museveni's Ban On Social Media in Uganda - the Good News and the Bad News for Africans

23rd.10.2017ANALYSIS

African rulers who want to stay in office are increasingly using "security" as a reason for closing down social media. They fear popular protests on the street challenging their legitimacy that they will be unable to control and that might lead to their downfall. Uganda's recent closure of social media is but one instance of a steady stream of closures by frightened rulers. However, all is not doom and gloom as Russell Southwood spells out the good news and the bad news in these developments.

In January 2015 faced with anti-Government protests about a third term for the country's President that had begun to spread from the capital Kinshasa to the rest of the country, President Kabila shut down the Internet and in so doing cut off social media. The Internet was restored only six days later after the protests had subsided.

In April 2011, the Ugandan Government appears to have blocked both Facebook and Twitter: users trying to access them get a message saying "Server not found".

But up until recently the majority of attention by African Governments has been paid to the use of SMS messaging to spread campaign news and organise protests. The worst occasion of this kind of banning SMS was the Ethiopian Government after the contested elections in 2005. The ban remained in force for two years. In Ethiopia, the opposition party Kinijit was particularly effective at using text messaging to mobilise its supporters and get them to the polling booths.

When the election result was announced the government took fright, contested what had happened and then moved quickly to shut down the SMS service to ensure the opposition party couldn't use it again. With no acknowledgement of why it had been banned, subscribers simply received the following message two years later announcing its re-opening: "[Wishing] you [a] happy Ethiopian Millennium. And now the SMS service is launched."

During the food price riots in Mozambique in September 2010, both mobile phone operators in Mozambique, M-Cel (government-owned) and Vodacom , bowed to pressure and suspended their text messaging services but then said that they had not done so, according to Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (AIM).

On 6 September 2010 people who used pre-paid M-Cel and Vodacom cards found it was impossible to send text messages. Since the Maputo riots of 1-2 September had been mobilized via text messages, it was immediately suspected that the government had ordered the companies to halt the text message service.

But when Transport and Communications Minister Paulo Zucula was asked about the matter, he denied giving any such order. "I'm the minister in charge of communications, and I have no knowledge of any instruction to suspend the messaging services", he told reporters. Both M-Cel and Vodacom assured AIM that the interruption to the messaging service was entirely due to technical problems.

On Friday night, interviewed by the independent television station TIM, Fernando Lima, chairperson of the media company Mediacoop, which publishes the weekly paper "Savana" and the daily newsheet "Mediafax", displayed a copy of the letter which the regulatory body, the INCM had sent to the two operators. The closure was short lived and normal service resumed quickly.

But with the spread of data-enabled featurephones and smartphones and the increasing number of Facebook users, African Governments are now using social media bans as a way of closing down discussion and street protests. Uganda returned to this effective way of closing things off during its recent election.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni said social media sites were taken down as a temporary security measure. He said the move was necessary because some people were using Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to peddle lies. "That steps must be taken for security to stop so many (social media users from) getting in trouble; it is temporary because some people use those pathways for telling lies. You tell lies but you do not know that the authorities (can) restrain those (platforms) for some time."

Taking its cue from the President, the independent telecoms regulator the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) cited an unspecified national security reason for the shutdown of social media and of mobile money sites. "The UCC has directed MTN to disable all social media & mobile money services due to a threat to public order & safety," one of the companies affected MTN stated.

And you want to know the good news? Uganda has 1.8 million Facebook users and within a short period of time 1.5 million of them had downloaded VPNs, a technical way of avoiding the Government shut-down, according to an infographic posted on Facebook by Teddy Ruge.

The sources for this figure? The first source was Lifehacks magazine website. The second was @Trustzoneapp, makers of the trust.zone VPN app for Android. It confirmed over half a million downloads of its app. @VPNcompare, out of UK, confirmed over a million Google searches for VPNs from Uganda on the day of elections. In other words, there was a high level of interest in evading the shutdown and many people will have found and used VPN software to do this.

Karl Kathuria, CEO, Psiphon Inc, a provider of free, open source VPN software immediately noticed the spike in interest:"Before the shutdown we had a very low number of users in Uganda. After the shutdown, those who knew about our software started posting about it and there was a big jump on our network and at its peak there were over 7,000 users a day. It's dropped again but a lot of users are aware of the site and it will go up again much faster next time."

Psiphon was only one of several providers but Kathuria points to its experience in Iraq where use of its software went from a few thousand to 1.8 million after a social media ban. The software is easy to obtain: either via the Google Play Store or there are email addresses you can write to and be sent the software. Interestingly it already has thousands of users in both Nigeria and South Africa.

And the bad news? These kinds of short, sharp shutdowns will become more popular with Africa's more authoritarian rulers. More developed African economies will find it nearly impossible to do a complete Internet shutdown but the more targeted social media bans are almost inevitable. Accessnow.org which is campaigning against these types of shutdowns lists the following countries as having used them: Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Worse still, there are perhaps more insidious controls on the way. According to Kathuria:"It's a bit of a cat and mouse game. Sites (VPN providers) want to keep access to the Internet. Deep packet inspection of traffic going in and out of the country can be used but there are not many countries operating like that".

A letter protesting the Ugandan shutdown was signed by Access Now, Association for Progressive Communications (APC), African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Legal Link International (LLI) Article 19 East Africa, Chapter Four Uganda, CIPESA, CIVICUS, Committee to Protect Journalists, DefendDefenders (The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Global Partners Digital, Hivos East Africa, Index on Censorship, ifreedom Uganda, Integrating Livelihoods thru Communication Information Technology (ILICIT Africa), International Commission of Jurists, ISOC Uganda, Kenya, KICTANet, Media Rights Agenda, the African Media Initiative (AMI), Unwanted Witness, Web We Want Foundation, Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

Carefully researched.studied and edited by Legal Link International EA teams.