Leader of major LGBTQ organization in Haiti found dead

In this July 13, 2018 file photo, Yaisah Val, 46, left, a transgender woman, laughs with Charlot Jeudy, center, president of Kouraj, Haiti's leading LGBT-rights group, at their office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Charlot Jeudy, the leader of a prominent LGBTQ organization in Haiti, was found dead on Monday, according to friends.

Geraldine Clair Museau, a member of the group known as Kouraj, which means "courage," in English, told The Associated Press that Jeudy's body was found at his home in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

It wasn't immediately clear how he died, and police didn't return calls for comment.

Jeudy has spoken out against homophobia and was forced to cancel a festival celebrating the Afro-Caribbean LGBTQ community in 2016 because of numerous threats of violence.

In a statement on his group's website, Jeudy had vowed to keep fighting discrimination.

"Faced with such permanent and brutal stigmatization, violence, and insults, many of us -- if not the totality -- have lost hope to see our own dignity respected. ... That is what I want to fight," he wrote.

Haiti's LGBTQ community remains mostly underground because of social stigma, although there are no laws criminalizing homosexual relations as there are in several English-speaking Caribbean islands.

A 2015 human rights report on Haiti by the U.S. State Department said "local attitudes remained hostile to outward" LGBTQ identification and expression, especially in the capital.