I was flung into cell with killers and rapists for staging ‘gay’ play

 
P22 David Cecil Pic: Alex Lentati
Alex Lentati
John Dunne @jhdunne18 February 2013

A British theatre producer today told how he was flung in a Ugandan jail with murderers and rapists before being deported for staging a production with a gay character.

David Cecil, 35, was imprisoned and then expelled from the country without being permitted to say goodbye to his partner and two young children.

The authorities branded him an “undesirable immigrant” and put him on a plane to London on Monday having arrested him five days earlier. He is now staying with his mother in Maida Vale and planning an appeal to Uganda’s high court to win the right to return to the country and his partner Florence Kebirungi and children Solomon, two, and Elena, one.

The producer told the Standard: “These guys were very menacing when they came to arrest me. I did not know if they were hitmen, secret service or what. I was taken to a prison and put in a tiny holding cell with Ugandan criminals, some of them murderers and rapists.

“There were 42 of us in two rooms, four metres by four metres, it was pretty horrendous. There was one meal of maize and boiled beans a day. It was an awful experience. The authorities did not tell me anything and I was not even allowed to see my children before I was deported days later. I had no time to pack anything — not even a toothbrush.”

The play that triggered his deportation was The River and the Mountain which was staged twice in the Ugandan capital Kampala in August. In the play a gay boss is killed by his employees.

Homosexuality is outlawed in Uganda and Mr Cecil was initially charged with disobeying a public order to scrap the production, but the case was dropped. However, the producer is convinced the authorities had already decided that he should be kicked out. He said: “They were always planning to deport me on the grounds that I am an undesirable. I plan to argue that I am not and am going to fight this in the high court. They have had the attitude of ‘off with his head’. I want to get back to my children.”

Mr Cecil said that he will be parted from his family for at least four months as he makes his appeal. He is being helped by allies in Uganda and such has been the level of support for him that his Facebook page continually crashed and had to be suspended. The producer, who moved to the country in 2003, said: “Uganda is not a terrible place and most people are not homophobic but they are conservative. There are pastors preaching hate, they are the problem.

“My situation is ridiculous — I just staged a play with a homosexual character — that does not make me ‘undesirable’ and I will fight this crazy decision. I am not even a gay rights activist.”

Uganda’s latest proposed laws could mean seven years in jail for artists deemed to be promoting homosexuality. A previous bill — denounced as “odious” by President Obama — had proposed the death penalty for gay people.

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