Police arrest 50 individuals in foiled anti-Eacop protest
Police arrest one of the two students who managed to reach to Parliament in the foiled Ant-Eacop protest on Friday. Photo | Busein Samilu
What you need to know:
- Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala metropolitan deputy police spokesperson, said that these individuals were arrested on Friday morning at the Wampewo round-about on Jinja road as they were travelling in four taxis from Banda to Parliament.
Police in Kampala arrested 50 individuals, including 47 students from various universities and three drivers, who planned to march to Parliament to protest the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) project.
Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, the Kampala metropolitan deputy police spokesperson, said that these individuals were arrested on Friday morning at the Wampewo round-about on Jinja road as they were travelling in four taxis from Banda to Parliament.
"We got information that a group of 200 students from Kyambogo University had mobilised their colleagues to go in six taxis to protest the construction of Eacop," said Kampala metropolitan deputy police spokesperson, Mr Owoyesigyire.
“Four of the taxis were intercepted and ordered to drive to Jinja Road police station where the 45 students and three drivers are being held, while one driver managed to escape and left the vehicle in motion,” he added.
Two of these students managed to escape and showed up at Parliament at around 1.00pm where they were intercepted and arrested by police.
Their arrest comes a few days after Police arrested four environmental activists including a Belgian citizen at the Chinese Embassy as they allegedly planned to march to Parliament over the same issue.
In their August 9 petition to the Speaker of Parliament seen by this publication, the students under their umbrella body Students Against Eacop, cited environmental risks, displacement of people, and biased compensation processes in the Eacop project.
"We demand that the persons affected by the pipeline be reinstated to their ancestral lands and have their property back as the long-made promises have led to psychological torture of the victims. A test sample of thousands of people displaced is a justification that government will not afford compensating the millions of people whose lives are likely to be lost in case of oil leakage," reads in part the petition.
The Eacop project is a 1,443km crude export pipeline system that will transport crude oil from Uganda to Tanzania. The students are demanding that Parliament pass a motion of urgency and resolution to protect the interests of the Ugandan people and safeguard the environment.
This is not the first protest against the project. In 2020, environmental activists filed a lawsuit in the East African Court of Justice, which was dismissed in November 2022.
