Clinton honors human rights advocates in Uganda, Frank Mugisha

(2012-08-04) On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honored human rights advocates in Uganda with the State Department's 2011 Human Rights Defender Award. Sec. Clinton thanked 2011 RFK Human Rights Award Laureate Frank Mugisha by name at the ceremony in Kampala. She also emphasized that the human rights defenders in Uganda were working "not to carve out special pprivileges for any group, but to ensure that universal rights are shared by all people."

Thankful for the recognition, Mugisha commented: "As Secretary Clinton stated, this prestigious human rights award emphasizes what we've saying all along: we are not asking for special treatment. We are simply asking the same rights afforded to every other Ugandan by our constitution and international law also be applied to the LGBTI community. We are grateful for the support in this work as we face tremendous opposition by Ugandan religious leaders and parliamentarians who want to make criminals out of human rights defenders and civil society organizations."

Read more