The Rt. Rev. Christopher Senyonjo issued his first public statement today on the recent murder of David Kato, a human rights advocate in Uganda who was killed because of his association to the Ugandan LGBT community. Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop of West Buganda, worked with Kato through Integrity Uganda and the Civil Society Coalition, a large human rights organization headed by the bishop.
Both Senyonjo and Kato were pictured on the front page of the controversial Ugandan tabloid “Rolling Stone” where names and addresses of prominent LGBT Ugandan leaders and allies were exposed, calling for their execution.
Kato was one of the plaintiffs in a court junction case against the Rolling Stone tabloid to stop the paper’s publication.
The bishop’s public statement is an open letter to the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow bishops of the 70 million-strong Anglican Communion. In his letter, Senyonjo calls for the Anglican Church to be more aggressive in its protection of human rights, particularly in Africa where significant support for continued criminalization of homosexuality comes from its religious leaders.
Senyonjo has a history of aiding marginalized people within the LGBT community. He opened a counseling center in Kampala and has been an active advocate for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Uganda and around the world.
The Anglican Church of Uganda has been supportive of the recent Bahati Bill, which proposes harsher sentencing for those in the LGBT community, and calls for family members to report on suspected LGBT individuals.
The church has also made public statements showing criticism of applying international human rights standards to the LGBT community in Uganda.
The bishop joins other Anglican bishops including three bishops in New York who voiced opinions about the Kato murder, calling for greater religious advocacy in the face of anti-gay legislation.
