David Kato

It was here that he became aware of his sexual orientation and was subsequently dismissed without any benefits in 1991.

Later, he came out to his twin brother John Malumba Wasswa.

He left to teach for a few years in Johannesburg, South Africa during its transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, becoming influenced by the end of the apartheid-era ban on sodomy and the growth of LGBT rights in South Africa.

Coming back to Uganda in 1998, he decided to come out in public through a press conference; he was arrested and held in police custody for a week due to this action.

He continued to maintain contact with pro-LGBT activists outside the country, with LGEP executive director Phumzile S. Mtetwa later citing an encounter with Kato at the 1999 ILGA World Conference.

When St Herman Nkoni Boys Primary School was founded in 2002 in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Masaka (Masaka District), Kato joined the faculty.

Kato became highly involved with the underground LGBT rights movement in Uganda, eventually becoming one of the founding members of SMUG on 3 March 2004.

According to a series of confidential cables written by a Kampala-based United States diplomat and later released by WikiLeaks, Kato spoke during a November 2009 United Nations-funded consultative conference on human rights.

During the conference, Kato spoke on the issue of LGBT rights and the anti-LGBT atmosphere in Uganda.

Members of the Uganda Human Rights Commission "openly joked and snickered" during the speech.

A rumour circulated that David Bahati MP, the leading proponent of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, had ordered the Inspector General of Police to arrest Kato, causing Kato and other attending members of SMUG to leave the conference immediately after he finished the speech.

Bahati then made a "tirade against homosexuality" to the conference, resulting in massive applause and Martin Ssempa, an evangelical Christian cleric, pounding his fist on the table in agreement.

By 2010, Kato had quit his job as a school teacher to focus on his work with SMUG in light of the events surrounding the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Kato was subsequently given a one year fellowship at the Centre for Applied Human Rights based at the University of York in the United Kingdom, a centre which provides fellowships to vulnerable and threatened human rights activists as a reprieve from the dangers they face in their own countries.

Kato was among the 100 people whose names and photographs were published in October 2010 by the Ugandan tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone in an article which called for their execution as homosexuals.

Kato and two other SMUG members who were also listed in the article – Kasha Nabagesera and Pepe Julian Onziema – sued the newspaper to force it to stop publishing the names and pictures of people it believed to be gay or lesbian.

The photos were published under a headline of "Hang them" and were accompanied by the individuals' addresses.

The petition was granted on 2 November 2010, effectively ruling for the cessation of publication of Rolling Stone.

Giles Muhame, the paper's managing editor, commented: "I haven't seen the court injunction but the war against gays will and must continue. We have to protect our children from this dirty homosexual affront."

David Kato Kisule (c. 1964 – 26 January 2011) was a Ugandan teacher and LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement and described as "Uganda's first openly gay man".

He served as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

Kato was murdered at his home in 2011, shortly after winning a lawsuit against a magazine which had published his name and photograph identifying him as gay and calling for him to be executed.

Born to the Kisule clan in its ancestral village of Nakawala, Namataba Town Council, Mukono District, he received the name "Kato" because he was the younger of twins.

He was educated at King's College Budo and Kyambogo University and taught at various schools including the Nile Vocational Institute in Njeru near Jinja.

On 3 January 2011, High Court Justice V. F. Kibuuka Musoke ruled that Rolling Stone's publication of the lists, and the accompanying incitation to violence, threatened Kato's and the others' "fundamental rights and freedoms;" attacked their right to human dignity; and violated their constitutional right to privacy.

The court ordered the newspaper to pay Kato and the other two plaintiffs USh 1.5 million each (approx. US$600 ).

On 26 January 2011, at around 2 p.m. EAT (11:00 UTC), after talking on the phone with SMUG member Julian Pepe Onziema a few hours before, Kato was assaulted in his home in Bukusa, Mukono Town, by a man who hit him twice in the head with a hammer.

The man then fled on foot.

Kato later died en route to the Kawolo General Hospital.

Kato's colleagues note that Kato had spoken of an increase in threats and harassment since the court victory, and they believe that his sexual orientation and his activism were the motive for the murder.

Joe Oloka-Onyango, who worked with Kato on the court case, said, "This is a very strange thing to happen in the middle of the day, and suggests pre-meditation."

According to reports in The New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald, questions have been raised about the murder being linked to Kato's sexuality.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both called for an in-depth and impartial investigation into the case, and for protection for gay activists.

James Nsaba Buturo, the Ugandan Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity, is on record as having declared that "Homosexuals can forget about human rights".

A police spokesperson initially blamed the murder on robbers who had allegedly killed at least 10 people in the area over the previous two months.

Police arrested one suspect, Kato's driver, and were seeking a second.

On 2 February 2011, police announced the arrest of Nsubuga Enoch, saying that he had confessed to the murder.

A police spokesperson described Enoch as a "well-known thief" and local gardener, but stated as to Enoch's alleged motive, "It wasn't a robbery and it wasn't because Kato was an activist. It was a personal disagreement but I can't say more than that."

A police source alleged to the Uganda Monitor that Enoch had murdered Kato because Kato would not pay him for sexual favours, an allegation that was repeated by the Ugandan ambassador to Belgium in a letter to European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek.

The Ugandan Ambassador later reiterated this version of events in a letter to the European Parliament, stating that Kato had earlier paid for "his prostitute" to be released from prison, but had then been attacked by him for refusing to pay for sex.