be like having no future of society. There is no procreation between man and man or woman and woman. We condemn it very strongly."

On Monday he ordered the break-up of a gay rights workshop organised by the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project at a hotel just outside the capital, Kampala. Police wearing riot gear sealed off the venue for several hours. About 15 activists from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania were questioned and later released without charge.

Police spokesman Idi Senkumbi told Reuters: "They were questioned on what exactly they were up to and the assembly they were involved in."

Amnesty International condemned the raid. "This ludicrous and senseless harassment of human rights activists has no basis in law whatsoever and has to stop," said MichelleKagari, its deputy director for Africa. "The continued persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists by the Ugandan authorities is beginning to take on the sinister characteristics of a witch hunt."

Lokodo made a similar intervention in February when he stormed into a gay rights conference and tried to have one of the organisers arrested for insulting him.

Frank Mugisha, head of the NGO Sexual Minorities Uganda, said the minister's ban was part of a wider assault on civil society in Uganda. "The government is trying to use homosexuality to crack down on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly," he said. "If NGOs are closed down, they will not be able to support human rights.

"Simon Lokodo is very homophobic but it's coupled with politics. He's trying to