Ugandan police on Tuesday arrested at least 42 young people who gathered outside Parliament House in Kampala to protest against government corruption and charged them with disorderly conduct.
“The protests are being organised by Ugandans who hope to emulate the efforts of those in neighbouring Kenya, where street action recently forced the president to fire almost his entire cabinet following widespread opposition to controversial tax proposals,” AfricaNews reported. report.
Mass protests in Kenya began in reaction to President William Ruto’s plans for huge tax hikes to reduce the country’s growing budget deficit. As AfricaNews reports, Kenyan protesters have succeeded in blocking the tax bill and forcing most of Ruto’s cabinet to resign, but they have not disbanded. believe The Ruto government is corrupt and they want the president himself to resign.
The protests in Kenya Became violentLeaders of the loosely organized movement blame “infiltrators” sent by the government to discredit them, while the Kenyan government says the protests are orchestrated by foreign powers to destabilize the country and topple President Ruto.
A similar phenomenon is occurring in Uganda. Marxist Strongman President Yoweri Museveni, in power for almost four decades, said the protests were “unacceptable” and warned demonstrators they were “playing with fire”.
“What right do you have to create chaos?… We are busy producing cheap food while people in other parts of the world are starving… You want to disrupt us. You are playing with fire but we will not allow you to disrupt us,” President Museveni said. Said “We are not going to let the protests continue,” he said in a marathon three-hour speech on Saturday, after previously labelling the protesters “thieves and parasites”.
President Museveni’s security forces warned that the protests would lead to “anarchy” and that “disorderly behavior” would not be tolerated. As in Kenya, young protesters took to social media to say they would defy the ban and continue taking to the streets. Some protesters even posted photos online to make them easier to identify if Museveni’s forces decided to kill or abduct them.
“Early tomorrow morning I will march with fellow youths to parliament against the growing corruption in Uganda. We will face the killers. This is my official portrait in case anything happens to me,” one protester wrote online before taking part in Tuesday’s march to parliament.
Ugandan opposition leaders and civil rights lawyers have slammed President Museveni, saying he has no right to ban peaceful protests and that the entire protest movement is a plot by opposition politicians to undermine his rule.
Police arrested dozens of anti-corruption demonstrators on Tuesday as they reached parliament, a move condemned by human rights groups who said the protests were peaceful and that the protesters had done nothing to warrant arrest.
Many of the demonstrators used placards and slogans. Call for resignation The case of House of Representatives Speaker Anita Among, who is facing sanctions from the US and UK over corruption allegations.
Among them were senior members of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party. Accused Amon is accused of spending huge amounts of state funds on overseas trips and pocketing money he had saved for trips he never took. The anti-corruption campaign said he collected nearly $900,000 in travel expenses in just six months last year — an exorbitant amount for an impoverished country with a huge budget shortfall.
Among her and her husband Authorized The US State Department deported him to Britain in May over allegations of “significant corruption related to his leadership”, and the Ugandan government is investigating whether he has undeclared assets in the UK.
The anti-corruption movement’s complaints are not unique to Among: protesters say state coffers have been systematically plundered, leaving no money for legitimate government obligations or vital citizen services.
“We are tired of corruption. Kampala is a city full of potholes and it’s because of corruption,” one protester said on Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Said Tuesday’s arrests made it clear that President Museveni “does not respect people’s right to protest and expression.”
“Instead of being arrested and prevented from protesting, they should have been given a platform to speak and be heard,” said Oryem Nyeko, HRW’s senior Africa researcher.
Ugandan police arrested protesters on Tuesday as well as Detained On Monday night, several members of parliament from the main opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party held a rally. NUP leader Bobi Wine Explained He said the party headquarters was surrounded by police and that some party members had been “violently arrested” by police.
Wine, a popular musician before entering politics, denied that his party organized the anti-corruption protests. He added that the NUP supports “all efforts against injustice, corruption and bad governance” and called police “cowards” for cracking down on protesters.
