“Am I going to be hanged for being who I am?” said Kasha Jacqueline, winner of the 2011 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, of the Ugandan bill that at draft stage had proposed the death penalty for homosexuals who are “repeat offenders” and included a number of other discriminatory measures. It seem that the bill was not on the agenda of parliament yesterday and is now unlikely to be debated during this parliamentary session as a new parliament will take over next week (but a similar bill could be re-introduced in the future).
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other international and national human rights groups had campaigned against passing the law and the on-line campaign group, Avaaz, collected 1.5 million signatures from around the world.
One should note however that the issue is more controversial internationally than in Uganda and most other African countries where homosexuality is often illegal and certainly widely unpopular.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 