Uganda: Husband of LGBTQ rights backer Byanyima arrested in Kenya
Jailed in his homophobic nation that abuses human rights, politician denies charges.
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been arrested in Kenya and forcibly taken across the border to a Ugandan military jail.
Besige is the husband of Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the U.N. program for HIV and AIDS. Both Byanyima and Besige have criticized Uganda’s ongoing repression of LGBTQ people, but only Byanyima has spoken forcefully in favor of LGBTQ rights.
Besigye has said that prosecuting homosexuals is a waste of government resources.
Byanyima has denounced anti-LGBTQ laws, saying that they impede the fight against HIV.
Besigye today (Nov. 20) appeared before a military court, where he denied charges that include the illegal possession of firearms and negotiating to buy arms abroad.
According to BBC News, Besigye was told he would remain in custody until Dec. 2.
In recent months, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has responded to public complaints about the economy and human rights by cracking down on critics.
The Washington Post reported on the arrest:
Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye kidnapped and jailed, wife says
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been arrested in Kenya and forcibly taken across the border to a Ugandan military jail, according to his wife and the head of his political party.
Besigye and another member of the opposition have been charged with a firearms offense, Ugandan court documents later showed.
Besigye’s wife, Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the U.N. program for HIV and AIDS, tweeted that he “was kidnapped last Saturday” while he was in Nairobi for a local politician’s book launch.
“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” she wrote Tuesday Eastern time. “We his family and his lawyers demand to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”
The police and foreign ministries of Kenya and Uganda did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ugandan military said it would make a statement later in the day.
Besigye — a prominent member of the Forum for Democratic Change, Uganda’s main opposition party — was once firm friends with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni; the two men fought through a long war to overthrow dictator Milton Obote.
Museveni became president in 1986, promising human rights, free market reforms and presidential term limits. But later, Besigye challenged him for leadership, running against him for the presidency four times in polls often marred by violence and allegations of rigging. Besigye has been arrested dozens of times in Uganda but never convicted.
Besigye “was kidnapped from Nairobi and illegally extradited or transferred to Kampala and currently detained at Makindye military barracks,” Erias Lukwago — lord mayor of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and head of the Forum for Democratic Change — told The Washington Post in a message.
Besigye and Haji Obeid Lutale Kamulegeya, another member of the opposition party, are accused of being in possession of a Ugandan military pistol and eight bullets in Nairobi, according to the Ugandan court documents, and they are accused of “soliciting military support in Geneva, Greece and Nairobi to prejudice security of defense forces.”
The high-profile incident follows a string of detentions and abductions of foreign nationals from Kenya that has tarnished its image as a peaceful haven in a region roiled by conflict.
Last month, masked Kenyan officers detained four Turkish nationals who were subsequently flown back to Turkey despite being registered as refugees by the United Nations.
In a Wednesday news release, the Pan-African Opposition Leaders Solidarity Network said the incident involving Besigye was “deeply disturbing.” It said that in August, 36 Ugandan citizens were “similarly abducted by Uganda security agents in cahoots with Kenyan authorities and spirited to Uganda where they were detained.”
The East African nation of about 50 million people is one of the world’s youngest countries — its median age is 16 years — but the moribund economy does not provide enough jobs for a wave of young people trying to enter the workforce. Decades of corruption and mismanagement have left the capital with dilapidated schools and hospitals as well as aging and unreliable infrastructure.
Uganda has never witnessed a peaceful transition of power. Museveni, who at 80 is one of Africa’s longest-serving presidents, oversaw the removal of term limits in 2005. He has responded to rising public anger over the economy and human rights by cracking down on critics and sending security forces to break up demonstrations with deadly force; survivors say detainees have frequently been tortured and sometimes killed.
