Hundreds of people gathered Friday to
say goodbye to Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato.
Kato, 43, was found bludgeoned to death
with a hammer in his home near Kampala, the nation's capital, CNN
reported.
Friends, family, colleagues and
diplomats crowded outside Kato's home for the burial. Many of his
friends wore t-shirts that said, “The Struggle Continues.”
Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton mourned the loss of Kato and urged
authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible.
Friends told the BBC that Kato had
received repeated death threats after his name, photograph and
address were
published in Uganda's Rolling
Stone
newspaper late last year. The cover story of Uganda's “top 100
homos” included a yellow banner that read “hang them.”
While being gay in Uganda is a criminal
offense punishable by life imprisonment in some cases, lawmaker
David Bahati has sponsored legislation that includes a death penalty
provision for people who repeatedly engage in gay sex and those who
are HIV-positive. The bill also bans the “promotion of
homosexuality,” which would effectively outlaw political
organizations, broadcasters and publishers that advocate on behalf of
gay rights.
Kato and his group, Sexual Minorities
Uganda (SMUg), had campaigned against the bill and won a legal
challenge against the paper.
Campaigners tied Kato's death to his
advocacy.
“I'm very angry,” Julius Kaggwa, a
human rights advocate, told CNN, “because everybody who knew David
knew he was dynamic. … This to me is a hate crime. Really, to put
it bluntly, it is a hate crime.”