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Preserve our right of peaceful protest
A heightened security presence is visible in Kampala, with armored vehicles and personnel patrolling the streets. Photo | Abubaker Lubowa
What you need to know:
The issue: Protests
Our view: We contend that the police acted unlawfully in criminalising yesterday’s attempt at peaceful protest.
The country’s security apparatus yesterday made good on its promise to ruthlessly thwart attempts by a section of Ugandans to peacefully protest against the hydra of corruption. Parliament, which is widely regarded as the totemic face of the vice, was the target of protestors who, among others, are demanding that Speaker Anita Among steps down.
Yesterday’s actions of both uniformed and non-uniformed officers will no doubt go down as a pyrrhic victory. This more than anything is because protestors that peacefully took to the streets yesterday were evidently exercising their rights of non-violent assembly. A fundamental freedom by any measure, such rights draw a line between a free society and a totalitarian one.
The broad brush of “disruption” has often come in handy for security forces in their disfiguration of peaceful protests. It is high time we call such a nakedly authoritarian move to constrain demonstrations what it really is—a power grab.
Above all, it is vitally important that we come to the conclusion that the Uganda Police Force is intent on criminalising peaceful protest. This is not without consequences, with democracy gravely impacted in the grand scheme of things.
The constitutional issues that the police’s power grab raises should also be seriously considered. Various state actors have needed little invitation to cite the permissible restrictions that Article 43 of the Constitution lays out. This is insofar as the enjoyment of rights and freedoms is concerned. The aforementioned State actors have, however, conveniently ignored a string of caveats.
The limitations—cherished to a point of fault by the state—must serve a legitimate aim, pass the proportionality test, be in public interest, be enacted through proper channels, be necessary, and be non-discriminatory. The curbs should also be subject to judicial scrutiny while complying with international standards.
It is quite evident that the manner in which limitations on peaceful protests were invoked yesterday fell short on multiple, if not all, aforesaid grounds. Moreover the Constitutional Court previously, in a unanimous ruling, declared that police powers over demonstrations are merely regulatory; not prohibitive.
It is against that backdrop that we, without fear of contradiction, contend that the police acted unlawfully in criminalising yesterday’s attempt at peaceful protest.
The dark arts that have been used to remand peaceful protestors to prison have also not been lost upon us. The chilling effect that such a brazen disregard of the rule of law is intended to have can only be construed as being unmistakably counterproductive.
We insist that the restriction of the arbitrary exercise of power (such as which we saw yesterday) by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws is important, if not existential, for our polity. It is our fervent hope that sanity prevails.
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