Yesterday, The Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights released a statement along with Sexual Minorities Uganda, undersigned by four Nobel Laureates including Archbishop Tutu, Professor Jody Williams, Dr Shirin Ebadi, and Professor Muhammad Yunus that calls for LGBT Equality acceptance worldwide:

As a global community of individuals dedicated to a more peaceful and just world, we wish to express our grave concern as to how our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) brothers and sisters are being treated across the globe.

Collectively we represent a diverse array of countries and cultures. Today more than ever, we wish to express that the same cultural values, which have fostered and supported our lifelong quests for peace, also command us to speak out against the violence and discrimination our fellow human beings are enduring every day solely because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex.

By expressing our solidarity with LGBTI people around the world, we recognize the inherent dignity and human rights of all individuals, without prejudice or intolerance, and we take an important step forward in our collective journey toward peace.

This letter comes just one week after  Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity, announced a ban on 38 human rights organisations that allegedly ‘promote homosexuality,’ Mr Lokodo has also called to rush the passage of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill, which proposes the death penalty for what it calls ‘aggravated homosexuality,’