Three men have been jailed after becoming the first to be convicted of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation for handing out a leaflet calling for gay people to be executed.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed gave out the leaflet entitled 'The Death Penalty?' It showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality. Ihjaz Ali was sentenced to two years in prison, while Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed were both sentenced to 15 months.

Sentencing the men, Judge John Burgess, Recorder of Derby, told them: “You have been convicted of intending to stir up hatred. It follows that your intention was to do great harm in a peaceful community.”

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South West Liberal Democrat MEP and President of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party Sir Graham Watson today introduced David Chalmers, who sits on the Board of the Kaleidoscope Trust, to European Commissioner for development Andris Piebalgs regarding EU funding for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex issues in the developing world.

The Kaleidoscope Trust is a LGBTI rights group launched in September 2011 which works tirelessly around the world to promote diversity and freedom from unlawful discrimination for LGBTI people. The trust's aim is respect for all regardless of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Commenting after the meeting, Sir Graham said "The Kaleidoscope Trust and I are pushing for more of the EU's overseas aid budget to be spent on the promotion of LGBT rights in the developing world. Although the West is far from perfect, from Uganda to Malawi, Cameroon to Brazil, the developing world is lagging behind on gay rights. It is our job to stand up for them."

"At present, only £65,000 of the £15million of EU money dedicated to democracy and human rights promotion across the world goes to LGBTI issues. This has to change."

At a packed meeting hosted by the Kaleidoscope Trust at the House of Commons this week, leading figures from the LGBT movement in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia urged supporters of equal rights to help them change minds as well as laws in countries where it is a crime to be gay.

After the intervention of political leaders including David Cameron and Hillary Clinton, the debate focused on how LGBT people themselves can take the lead in the demand for human rights for all.

Purna Sen, a trustee of the Kaleidoscope Trust and former head of Human Rights at the Commonwealth Secretariat, opened the meeting by stating that although global voices of influence had recently rallied around to call to end to discrimination, governments would act only when the pressure from below becomes inescapable. She said:

“The Arab Spring took many by surprise. Events have proved that repression is a dead end. Police Power is no match for people power seeking dignity and justice”.

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The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has put pressure on African leaders to respect gay rights in his speech to the recent African Union summit. He told discrimination against gay and lesbian people had been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for too long.

With some reservations, the UK gay Humanist charity, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), has welcomed the unequivocal support for gay rights given by Ban Ki-moon.

He told delegates that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity "prompted governments to treat people as second class citizens or even criminals".

"Confronting these discriminations is a challenge, but we must not give up on the ideas of the universal declaration (of human rights)," he said.

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The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has said he feels a duty to campaign for the rights of gay and lesbian people abroad.

In a New Year message to the Kaleidoscope Trust, Mr Bercow said his new coat of arms, which was unveiled in November and included the rainbow flag and the motto All Are Equal, ‘underlined my commitment to this cause’.

The Speaker said he had campaigned for LGBT rights in the UK as a backbencher and was proud that the House of Commons had enshrined the right to equality. But he said that in many countries overseas equality ‘remains but a distant goal’.

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