Yesterday afternoon, David Kato, a prominent Ugandan gay rights activist, was beaten to death in his home near the capital, Kampala. His death comes four months after his picture, name, and home address—along with similar information for several other people—were published on the front page of a local tabloid under the headline “Hang Them.”
Same-sex relations are illegal in Uganda, with punishments of long prison sentences. But last year, a bill proposed in parliament called for even harsher laws, including the use of the death penalty in some cases. The bill would also oblige anyone—parents, friends, religious leaders, neighbors—with knowledge of someone in their community who is or might be a homosexual to report that person to the police within 24 hours. David Kato was a leading voice of opposition to the bill.
Kato and two other activists sued the tabloid paper and won on January 3. According to Human Rights Watch (external link)h, the judge ruled the publication violated the constitutional right to privacy and he issued an injunction prohibiting any other publication from similarly revealing identities. Despite domestic and international opposition, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill continues to linger in the nation’s legislature.
Last April, shortly after the bill was first proposed in the Ugandan parliament, the Museum’s Voices on Genocide Prevention hosted an interview with Cary Alan Johnson, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Johnson discussed in depth the vitriolic nature of the bill and national and international response. The podcast also examined the history of violence targeted against homosexuals during the Nazi era, when 100,000 German men were arrested and tried for violating Nazi law against homosexuality and some 5,000 to 15,000 men suspected of being homosexual were sent to concentration camps without trial, where many of them perished.
To learn more about this history, visit the Museum’s online exhibition Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933–1945.
For more information, visit Human Rights Watch (external link).