Police said today that openly homosexual David Kato had been bludgeoned at his home in Kampala and suffered serious head wounds.
He had been receiving death threats since the country's Rolling Stone newspaper in October listed him among 100 gay Ugandans.
Today he was buried by friends and family in Mukono after his body had lain in an open coffin last night near his parents' home in Mataba.
He and two other activists sued the newspaper and won the case earlier this month, even though homosexuality is illegal in Uganda.
He had campaigned tirelessly through his advocacy work with Sexual Minorities Uganda.
Witnesses told police that a man entered Kato's home in Mukono at around 1pm on Wednesday and hit him twice in the head with a hammer before fleeing in a car
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement: 'Kato died on his way to Kawolo hospital. Police told Kato's lawyer that they had the registration number of the vehicle and were looking for it.'
His friends believe he was murdered because of his sexuality.
Human Rights Watch called for an investigation and for the government to protect gays from violence and from 'hate speech' that could incite it.
Homosexuality is deeply unpopular in many African nations, where some see it as a Western import.
It is illegal in 37 countries on the continent and few Africans are openly gay, fearing imprisonment, violence and loss of jobs.
In October 2009 a bill was put forward that proposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts.
U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the move as 'odious' and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to express concern.
It was quietly shelved under the pressure, but human rights groups fear it may be passed after a February presidential election that Museveni is expected to win.
Rolling Stone published 29 photographs with names and, in some cases, addresses before the High Court ordered it to stop on grounds of privacy.
The first article - which featured Kato - ran under the headlines, '100 pictures of Uganda's top homos leak' and 'Hang Them'.
Giles Muhame, the paper's 22-year-old editor, said that he condemned the murder and that the paper had not wanted gays to be attacked.
'If he has been murdered, that's bad and we pray for his soul,' Muhame said.
'There has been a lot of crime, it may not be because he is gay. We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them. We said they should be hanged, not stoned or attacked.'
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