The murder of a Ugandan activist, the trial of a teenage girl in London and leaflets outside a mosque in Derby… On the face of it, these three stories don’t seem to have much in common.
But when you look more closely at the circumstances of each of them, it’s a different story altogether…
In Uganda, a man was beaten to death with a hammer in front of his doorstep. What would be a gruesome murder anyway takes a different dimension when you know that the victim, David Kato, was an activist campaigning for gay rights in Uganda, and who had become famous after he sued a paper for outing him.
In London, a teenage girl was sentenced for the manslaughter of a 62 year-old man, along with her boyfriend. The incident happened in central London on a Friday night after the two had been drinking and the girl shouted at the man that he was a ‘fucking faggot’ before they attacked him. They were both convicted of manslaughter, and she was sentenced to an extra year in prison because the court decided the attack was homophobic.
In Derby, men were in court last week over leaflets they distributed outside their local mosque. An innocent enough activity, except for the fact that the leaflets were entitled “The death penalty?” and called for the execution of homosexuals. They were charged with inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation and will be tried next week by Derby’s Magistrates’ Court.
The link is hopefully (and sadly) obvious by now, and the interesting question in relation to the criminal law is this: how does the criminal law deal with intolerant and homophobic people?
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