Ugandan gay rights activist found murdered

David Kato campaigned against anti-gay laws, discrimination

by macleans.ca on Thursday, January 27, 2011 5:27pm - 6 Comments

A prominent Ugandan gay activist was found murdered on Thursday. David Kato was one of several people outed by the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone, which published their pictures under the headline “hang them.” Witnesses told the BBC Kato was beaten to death in his home in Kampala. Police, who have a suspect in custody, have said there is no connection between the beating and Kato’s work with his gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug). However, several people have complained of being attacked after their photos appeared in Rolling Stone. The paper’s editor, Giles Muhame, told Reuters news agency he wasn’t promoting violence agains gays. “We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality,” he said, “not for the public to attack them.”

BBC News

Bookmark and Share
  • Judge Roy Bean

    This world ain't ever gonna get along. The hatreds just keep moving around.

  • McC_

    “We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality,” he said, “not for the public to attack them.”
    airtight defence, that.

  • TorontoChick

    This is so wrong that I don't even know where to begin. Alright, give us your gay, your atheist, your Christian, your pro-love, anti-arranged marriage teenagers, your white African farmers. These people are literally in a fight for their lives globally. The reasonable people of the world need somewhere to go, and it might as well be here.

  • harebell

    American Fundagelicals would like to invoke the "Palin clause" over the content of their speech regarding this issue.
    They would like to remind folk that what they said about homosexuals in Uganda and who they said it to, in no way could be construed to have had any part in what caused these murders.

  • Tony LaJeunesse

    There must be a reason why you practically have to catch an African gay man in flagrante dilecto before he'll admit to being gay.

  • Emily

    Another country that badly needs a revolution.

From Macleans