Uganda: Police stop gay pride parade deemed illegal

Members of Uganda's gay and transgender community yell "we want peace" after police forced them to leave the gay pride festival in Entebbe, Uganda, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016. Ugandan police on Saturday prevented organizers from holding a gay pride parade on the orders of a government minister who said such an event is illegal. (AP Photo/Katie G. Nelson) (The Associated Press)

Members of Uganda's gay and transgender community yell "we want peace" after police forced them to leave the gay pride festival in Entebbe, Uganda, Saturday, Sept.24, 2016. Ugandan police have prevented organizers from holding a gay pride parade on the orders of a government minister who says such an event is illegal. (AP Photo/Katie G. Nelson) (The Associated Press)

Ugandan police have prevented organizers from holding a gay pride parade on the orders of a government minister who says such an event is illegal.

Frank Mugisha, a gay rights leader in Uganda, said police blocked organizers from staging the event at two locations outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Mugisha said more than 100 LGBT people turned up for the event Saturday at a beach on Lake Victoria. He said most of them were later ordered into minibuses and escorted by police to Kampala.

Homosexuality is criminalized in Uganda under a colonial-era law proscribing sex acts "against the order of nature."

In 2014, Uganda's president signed an anti-gay bill that originally had proposed the death penalty against some homosexual acts. A court later jettisoned the law.