A Ugandan man held in pre-trial detention for nearly a year under anti-homosexuality laws that have drawn international condemnation has been released on bail, a rights group representing him said.
Campaigners say Uganda's LGBTQ community has faced increasing rights abuses, including home evictions and torture, after the East African country passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) last year.
Michael Opolot, 21, was arrested on August 15 last year. He was initially charged with aggravated homosexuality and remanded in custody by a court in Soroti, in north-eastern Uganda. The charge was later changed to a lesser one, but he was repeatedly denied bail.
"After 350 days on remand, the Soroti Chief Magistrate's court finally granted (Opolot) ... cash bail," Chapter Four Uganda, a human rights group representing him, posted on the X platform late on Tuesday.
"This long pre-trial detention is unconscionable."
A spokesman for the judiciary did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The release was also reported by Frank Mugisha, Uganda's most prominent LGBTQ rights campaigner, who opened a new tab on his X account.
In a statement this month, Convening for Equality (CFE), a coalition of LGBTQ rights groups, said Opolot had been subjected to forced anal examinations during his detention.
A prison spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters phone call seeking comment.
The AHA introduced the death penalty for so-called aggravated homosexuality, described as having same-sex relations with a vulnerable person or if the act results in the transmission of a terminal disease such as HIV, among other categories.
Those convicted of same-sex intercourse receive life imprisonment, the same sentence Opolot faced after the charge against him was amended to unnatural sex -- covered by an old anti-sodomy law introduced in Uganda during British colonial rule.
A report by the coalition of rights groups in June said that at least 1,000 violations of LGBTQ rights had been recorded in the previous nine months as the new legislation fuelled a surge in anti-gay hostility.
Arrests, torture, beatings, evictions, banishment, blackmail and loss of employment were among the violations.
The AHA legislation drew condemnation from the West, with the US imposing sanctions and travel bans and the World Bank suspending all new loans to the country.
