By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA
Makerere Community Church lead pastor, Martin Ssempa has been directed to remove posts and images on his personal Twitter handle in which he allegedly stigmatized persons living with HIV/AIDS.
The directive was issued by a tribunal of the Equal Opportunities Commission on Wednesday (September 27), at Kingdom Kampala.
According to the commission, Pr. Ssempa under guise of fighting HIV/AIDS has been running a beauty pageant campaign dubbed, “Miss HIV/AIDS” which the commission says discriminates people living with HIV/ AIDS.
“Every disease must have a stigma to make it undesirable for the uninfected. This competition is trying to make it a desirable disease. I lost both my sister and brother to HIV. It’s a deadly disease. This is not to deny that some people who carry the virus are pretty and sexy,” the pastor posted on X (Twitter).
Although the pastor has rights to freedom of expression, the commission argues that his posts are prejudicial to the right to freedom of association and discriminates people living with HIV.
He was given an ultimatum of 14days to pull down the posts and not to make any further make any utterances or written material both on social and mainstream media likely to cause stigma to other persons.
“The respondent shall within a period not exceeding 14 days effectively withdraw any discriminating and Stigmatizing statements posted on his Twitter page against the complainant and all persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS,” said Felix Ojuko who presided over the Tribunal.
The accusations against Pr. Ssempa were raised by the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) together with another victim whose identity is still concealed.
EOC advised the pastor to comply with the Equal Opportunities Commission Act, HIV and AIDS prevention and control Act, national guidelines on ending stigma and discrimination and other provisions of the law in the constitution whenever dealing with HIV.
Ssempa however did not feel convinced with the directives of the commission and vowed to challenge the decision in the High Court.
