Open Latter to Zohran Mamdani

By Melanie Nathan, November 08, 2025.

Nov 08 2025, - An Open Letter to Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani - Now That You Are Elected — You Must Speak Out

Dear Mayor Elect Mamdani,

Now that you are about to hold the highest office in New York City, your voice carries global weight. That voice can no longer remain silent about the atrocities of the country of your birth, Uganda, a country whose passport you reportedly still hold, where you visit regularly, and where you recently celebrated your wedding in lavish splendor. You built your career by standing for the oppressed and voiceless. Yet you have not uttered a single word condemning the ruthless regime of Yoweri Museveni or denouncing Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act (2023), known around the world as the Kill the Gays Bill. In fact you stood in silent complicity as you were photographed with one of the Bill’s most voracious champions,  former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, asserting you did not know who she was, but now you do!

This silence is no longer an option. Moral clarity demands that you speak.

The Uganda You Still Claim

Yoweri Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, evolving from a rebel who promised “no more dictators” into one of Africa’s most enduring and brutal autocrats. His rule rests on manipulation of the constitution, militarization of politics, and systemic terror.

For nearly four decades, Museveni’s forces have arrested, beaten, and tortured opponents like Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine). Journalists such as Saif-llah Ashraf Kasirye (Ghetto TV), Ali Mivule (NTV), and Daniel Lutaaya (NBS) have been shot, pepper-sprayed, or arbitrarily detained for doing their jobs. Women — journalists, parliamentarians, academics — have been sexually assaulted during arrests simply for dissenting. (I have purposely excluded the names of those who I provided advocacy and services to.)

Human rights organizations and Uganda’s own courts have exposed “safe houses” — secret detention sites where critics vanish, are held incommunicado, and tortured. Museveni has abolished presidential term and age limits, ensuring his permanent grip on power.

The 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act cemented his reign of fear: life imprisonment for consensual same-sex conduct; death for so-called “aggravated homosexuality”; criminalization of advocacy, expression, even compassion. When signing it, Museveni urged African leaders to “save the world from homosexuality.” The result: waves of violence, persecution, and mass flight. LGBTQI+ Ugandans have fled into exile, stranded in refugee camps across hostile African states, many stateless and suffering in silence. Other African countries have introduced similar bills.

This is the Uganda you have ties to. This is the government whose crimes demand condemnation.

The Hypocrisy of Silence

While Uganda planned to extend military courts’ power over civilians and prosecuted opposition leaders like Besigye in military dock, you prepared to marry in Kampala — in full public view, without a word about the repression around you.

How can a leader who built his image defending the marginalized remain silent while his own homeland criminalizes love and dissent? You speak boldly against tyranny in America, against fascism, against Trumpism — yet not against Museveni’s dictatorship that tortures, kills, and legislates hate.

Until you publicly denounce Museveni’s regime and the Kill the Gays Bill, your silence will stand as moral cowardice — an act of hypocrisy that suggests fear of losing familial privilege, wealth, or influence in Uganda. You cannot champion liberation in New York and ignore persecution in Kampala. You cannot fight for LGBTQ+ rights in America while holding citizenship in a country that executes its queer people.

A Call to Courage

If you truly stand for justice, equality, and liberation, then use your platform now — clearly and courageously — to:

1. Condemn Yoweri Museveni’s regime and its decades of violence and repression;

2. Call for the repeal of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and protection of Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community;

3. Demand restoration of democratic governance and civilian justice in Uganda.

You can make history with your words — or you can be remembered for your silence.

The world is watching. New York’s Pride and Queer Liberation community, is watching. Uganda’s queer people, its journalists, its dissidents, its women — they are watching too.

History will record whether you chose courage over complicity, Ubuntu over self-preservation, and loyalty to the voters who placed their trust in you over their betrayal. Aluta continua

MELANIE NATHAN Executive Director, African Human Rights Coalition www.africanhrc.org Commissionermnathan@gmail.com Melanie Nathan, is the founding director of African Human Rights Coalition, which provides advocacy and humanitarian services to LGBTQI+ people in and. from African countries, in forced displacement. She is a country conditions expert who testifies in the U.S., and globally for LGBTQI+ Africans, including Ugandans, fleeing violence and persecution.