Uganda's main opposition leader again refused to answer terrorism charges in a military court on Friday, as a political crisis intensified in this east African country ahead of presidential elections next year.
Kizza Besigye first refused to enter a plea on Thursday when charges of terrorism, which carry the death penalty, and illegal firearms possession were filed against him in the military court, which is controlled by the president's trusted aides. Earlier this month, civilian prosecutors accused Besigye of treason.
The military judge ordered Besigye held until the trial proper begins on Dec. 19. Later on Friday, the civil court granted bail, but Besigye remained imprisoned on the military charges.
PHOTO: EPA
Besigye was greeted by huge crowds when he returned from exile last month to run for president. He has mounted the strongest challenge to President Yoweri Museveni's 19-year rule.
Museveni had been hailed as a reformer but his recent crackdown on Besigye has brought criticism from international allies and human rights organizations.
"Nobody is trying to stop him from [running in] elections," Museveni told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit in Malta where he has faced pressure over the Besigye case.
Museveni, who has ruled for 19 years, said the international community was unreasonably biased in favor of the Ugandan opposition.
atrocities
Meanwhile, conditions in northern Uganda are so appalling that UN agencies have decided they have to beef up efforts to curb atrocities against some 2 million people who have fled their homes because of Africa's longest-running civil war, a key official said on Friday.
"It's one of the least addressed and one of the biggest humanitarian crises that we have in the region," said Dennis McNamara, who heads the UN humanitarian office's efforts to help people displaced in their own countries.
McNamara had just returned from a visit to northern Uganda, where the Lord's Resistance Army has been waging war on the Ugandan government for 19 years.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS