Prolific gay rights activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera has been presented with the esteemed Martin Ennals rights award.
A jury based in Geneva rewarded the bravery Nabagesera has shown by championing gay rights in a country that condemns them.
Due to a barrage of threats and harassment she has moved “from house to house, afraid to stay long in the same place”, their statement read.
“[She is] an exceptional woman of a rare courage, fighting under death threat for human dignity and the rights of homosexuals and marginalised people in Africa,” The jury chairman Hans Thoolen said.
The award jury, comprised of ten organisations, has recognised the grave plight of Ugandan LGBTS. In honouring Nebagesera her colleague David Kato, murdered in January, is also acknowledged.
Kato sued Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper after he was outed in its pages, he was killed soon after.
Nebagesgera and scores of other allegedly gay people were also featured in the same issue under the heading “Hang Them”.
In 2009 the penalty for homosexual acts was increased from 14 years to life imprisonment.
Those who engage in same sex relations with HIV sufferers, minors, disabled persons or “serial offender[s]” face the death penalty, as do those who commit “aggravated homosexuality”.
The Ugandan parliament is yet to formally debate the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
