New report pins Ugandan govt on brutality, killings

Kampala. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a scathing report castigating police and other security agencies for brutality against the population and violently dispersing opposition gatherings with impunity.

The US-based human rights organisation condemned the continued violation of people’s freedom of association, expression, and assembly.

In its annual world report, HRW also accused government of turning a blind eye to illegal detentions, torture, and extra judicial killings and refusing to prosecute the perpetrators.

The 2017 report released yesterday named police as the leading state agency in violation of human rights and extrajudicial killings of civilians.

“Police killed at least two people in Rukungiri and one in Amolatar while using excessive force to disperse what they deemed “illegal rallies.” And yet in October, police charged opposition leader Kizza Besigye and two colleagues with murder, assault, inciting violence, and unlawful assembly for the deaths of protestors in Rukungiri,” the report states.

Blocking demos

HRW added that police “unjustifiably block, restrict, and disperse peaceful assemblies and demonstrations by opposition groups, relying on the vague and overbroad 2013 Public Order Management Act (POMA), which grants police wide discretionary powers over public and private gatherings”. The report cites numerous incidents, including the arrest and detention of 56 members of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party for three days on charges of holding an “unlawful assembly” at a private home on the outskirts of Kampala. “In contrast,” the report notes, “in August and September 2017, police in Arua, West Nile and Kabale escorted demonstrators advocating in favour of the constitutional amendment.” This was the period government was drumming up support for its move to amend Article 102b of the Constitution to scrap the presidential age limit that would bar President Museveni from standing for re-election in 2021 due to overage. (NMG)