A prominent Ugandan opposition politician was kidnapped during a book launch in Kenya over the weekend, transferred to Uganda and is being held at a military jail in Kampala, his wife said yesterday.
Kizza Besigye has run against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in four elections and lost each time, although he has rejected the results, alleging fraud and voter intimidation. He has been arrested dozens of times before.
“I request the [government] of Uganda to release my husband Dr Kizza Besigye from where he is being held immediately,” his wife, Winnie Byanyima, said.
Photo: AFP
A spokesman for the Ugandan military could not be immediately reached for a comment.
“As police we don’t have him, so we can’t make any comment,” Ugandan police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke said.
A spokesperson for Kenyan national police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In July, Kenyan authorities detained 36 members of Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change party, one of Uganda’s main opposition groups, and deported them to Uganda where they were charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Besigye, who was Museveni’s physician during the guerrilla war, but later became an outspoken critic, was kidnapped on Saturday during the launch of a book by veteran Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua, Byanyima wrote on X.
“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” said Byanyima, who is the executive director of UNAIDS, the UN program on HIV/AIDS.
“We, his family and his lawyers, demand to see him. He is not a soldier,” Byanyima said. “Why is he being held in a military jail?”
Museveni’s government has been accused of repeated human rights abuses against opposition leaders and supporters, including illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings.
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