Shrinking space of Ugandan’s liberties in last 20 years

Communication was done without public address systems. The speakers would stand on a platform and share their thoughts as a sizeable number of people listened attentively. 

The late Joseph Mujuzi Lwanga, a local Democratic Party leader, worked crowds with his well-crafted speeches as he painted the worst situation Ugandans were living in.

One of the best illustrations he used to drive his point home was the piece of blue bar soap. 
“[President] Museveni has impoverished Ugandan families to the extent that family members bury their long held traditions to an extent of sharing a piece of soap,” Late Mujuzi said. “Can you imagine, when the father and his daughter use the same piece of soap to bath? Soon after the bath, the same piece is used to wash dishes on which his visiting mother-in-law would have a meal.” 

In many Ugandan cultures, it is an abomination for the father to share with his daughter and mother-in-law any item.

Other speakers would even call out government spies to take the message to security personnel. Police didn’t bother deploying at the town hall meetings or interrupt them.

Several such rallies would be held at the Constitution Square and parks in townships. Before 7pm, the meeting attendants would peacefully retreat to their normal lives. That was then. 

Mr Eron Kiiza, a lawyer who has represented several government critics arrested for allegedly holding protests, says Uganda is now a police State. 

“As long as it is a demonstration against the State, it doesn’t matter the medium used. The organisers and the participants will be targeted,” Mr Kiiza says. 

Earlier this year, Arsenal Football Club supporters who held a procession celebrating their club’s win against rivals Manchester United were quickly arrested by heavily armed police in Jinja City.

Police detectives suspected them of having a political motive and suspects had to be asked about Arsenal’s profile to establish prove that their motive wasn’t suspicious.

When they failed to tick all the boxes, the football fans were detained under offences of holding an illegal procession. They were only saved by a public outcry. 

Lawful but blocked
Mr Kiiza says even with the current restrictive laws, spontaneous processions are lawful, but they too have been blocked.

The liberties, such as freedoms of assembly and association, which Ugandans fought so hard in courts, Parliament and on the streets to protect are now being rolled back.

When government held a referendum on June 29, 1999, on whether Uganda should remain in the Movement system or embrace the multi-party dispensation, which was won in favour of former, the late Paul Ssemogerere and Zackary Olum petitioned the Constitutional Court that it was illegal to curtail people’s freedoms of association guaranteed in the Constitution. 

On August 11, 2000, former DP leader Ssemogerere and Mr Olum won the case, opening gates from the return of multi-party politics. Attempts by government to appeal in a higher court failed. 
Five years later, another referendum was held that led to multiparty dispensation. 

Political parties and organisations were allowed to operate, but they now faced a bigger challenge of reaching their members as police often violently disrupting their meetings.

Police often uses Section 32 of the Police Act to block or disperse any events, saying it gives them powers to regulate assemblies.

Mr Muwanga Kivumbi, then the head of a pressure group, Popular Resistance against Life Presidency, was of the victims of blocking of assemblies. 

Mr Kivumbi’s colleagues were arrested and charged in court for allegedly holding illegal processions. 
“At one point, the government arrested many protestors and sent them to jail. The bail fees were increased that it was impossible for us to secure their release,” Mr Kivumbi said on Simba Radio.

Frustrated, Mr Kivumbi dragged government to the Constitutional Court, challenging the constitutionality of Section 32 of the Police Act that “empowered the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to bar any assembly if it was likely to cause breach of the peace”.

Police officers attempted to ease the restrictions on assemblies during the 2006 general elections, but the political leadership seemed to be uncomfortable about loosening of guard.

In February 2006, Benson Oyo Nyeko, the then commander of Kampala Extra Region (now Kampala Metropolitan Police), allowed former FDC president Kizza Besigye to hold a rally at a rugby club in Kampala City, which irritated then IGP Kale Kayihura.

Gen Kayihura drove from police headquarters to the Kampala Central Police Station and ordered the event to be halted. Kayihura wondered who had allowed Dr Besigye to hold a rally and a procession. 

The irritated General ordered the commander to disperse the rally and procession immediately. 
In less than a week, Gen Kayihura issued a police message that transferred Mr Nyeko and others from Kampala Extra to upcountry stations. 

The message was clear to the police commanders; public assemblies were not to be permitted.
On November 27, 2007, then Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, tightened the regulations even more by issuing statutory instrument number 31: The Police (Declaration of Gazetted Areas) Instrument, 2007. 

In the instrument, Dr Rugunda gazetted entire Kampala City and all urban areas in Uganda unlawful for any person to convene an assembly or hold a demonstration or procession of 25 without a permit obtained from the Inspector General of Police. The instrument included residential areas and any avenue. 

“…the whole of the area within Kampala City, including any street, road, lane, avenue, highway, greenbelt, square, central business area, places of public resort and residential areas; and,” the instrument read. “Any area within a city, municipality, town or urban area in Uganda including any road, lane, avenue, highway, walkway, greenbelt, square, central business area, places or public resort and residential areas within that city, municipality, town or urban area.”

The instrument gave the IGP so much power that he or she would block an assembly on “any other reasonable cause”.

Security agencies enforced the instrument to the letter.
The Opposition would get reprieve on May 27, 2008, when the Constitutional Court ruled in the Muwanga Kivumbi Vs Attorney General case that Section 32 of the Police Act, which the IGP often used to stop assemblies, was null and void.

Opposition was able to hold a handful of assemblies but under a watchful eye of the security agencies. Majority of the assemblies were disrupted or halted on pretext that they were infringing on the rights of the business communities or public facilities. 

A playground near Mulago National Referral Hospital that used to be avenue for political rallies was made unavailable to politicians because it is near a medical facility. 

After the general elections of 2011 and the start of the Arab Spring, the Opposition started walk-to-work campaign under their pressure group Action for Change (A4C) in April 2011.

Coordinated by Mr Mathias Mpuuga (now Leader of Opposition in Parliament), walk-to-work campaign was against the rising cost of basic commodities in the country. Copying what happened in the Middle East where governments were toppled through uprising, the walk-to-work campaign rallied people to walk to urban areas every morning.

Dr Besigye was the key walker, but he wasn’t allowed by the security personnel to enter the city. Criticism of the police actions against innocent walkers prompted the commander to change approach. 

Mr Olara Otunnu, then Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) president, was escorted by the officer in-charge of Jinja Road Police Station, Alphonse Mutabazi, to his offices on Kampala Road, which was commended by the human rights activists. 

This annoyed the political leadership of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, prompting the firing of Mutabazi from his position.

According to a senior police officer who was part of the operations, they got directives that no processions, peaceful or not, were to be allowed in the city centre and other urban areas. 

Constitutional Square was closed off for any activities. Queen’s Way, which was another alternative venue, was filled with hips of soil deep in the night before an enclosure was put around the plot. 

The disruption went as far as Kibuye Roundabout, where all pitches on the roadside that the youth could converge on, were destroyed. Football and recreation activities were halted in the area.

Visits of politicians to the markets, business centre and any public area where literally banned. Then Kampala Woman Member of Parliament Nabilah Naggayi attempted to visit St Balikuddembe Market and was nearly undressed as police stopped her.

Amid flaring tempers over the right to hold assemblies, government introduced the Public Order Management Bill in October 2011 to manage assemblies. 

The Bill was so tough on assemblies that all civil rights activists opposed it, but Parliament dominated by the ruling party, passed it.

The only venue in Kampala City then that government allowed rallies was Kololo Independence Grounds. 
To fix the urgent problem of continued walk-to-work activists, then Attorney General Peter Nyombi (now deceased) issued a statutory instrument declaring A4C an unlawful society, thus banning its activists around the country. 

“In exercise of the powers conferred on the Attorney General by section 56(2) (C) of the Penal Code Act, Cap. 120, this order is made this 4th day of April, 2012. This order may be cited as the Penal Code (Declaration of unlawful societies) Order, 2012. Any society specified in the schedule to this order is declared to be a society dangerous to peace and order in Uganda,” Nyombi said in the instrument.

Despite several attempts by the activists to rename their pressure group and reactive their activities, the Attorney General’s order enabled the security agencies to crack down on their events and arrest suspects and seize property. 

The passing of the Public Order Management Act (POMA) in 2013 strengthened government assault on assemblies. The law required the organiser, among others, to get consent of the owner of the venue and also notify the Inspector General of Police.

On November 17, 2013, POMA was enforced for the first time when Mukono Municipality legislator Betty Nambooze wrote to police to hold a meeting, and in response then Kampala Metropolitan Police commander Andrew Felix Kaweesi (now deceased) blocked the meeting, quoting Section 6 of POMA. 

Since then, police has effectively used the same law to crack down on assemblies and events.
The crackdown has gone to the extent of some Opposition leaders being blocked from accessing media houses on allegations that their appearances were intended to fan subversive activities. 

Dr Besigye and NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, have severally been blocked from accessing media in rural areas. Radio stations managers are intimidated with loss of advertisements and cancelation of licences.

The crackdown has now gone to as far as blocking prayers and indoor dialogues organised by the Opposition or government critics.