Torture has no place in a modern democracy
Some of the suspects who were arrested after the Kasese killings display their wounds in the Jinja Magistrate’s Court on December 14, 2016. The suspects say they were tortured by security. PHOTO/ ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The issue: Torture
- Our view: Certainly we cannot take this direction. We have courts that we feel should be competent enough to handle cases instead of subjecting citizens to torture and then pretend to arraign them before courts of law.
The weekend closed with a chilling story aired on, NTV Uganda, of novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s torture while in detention. The writer was picked by security operatives on December 28 from his house in the city outskirts and held incommunicado for more than aweek before he was produced in court and charged with offensive communication.
His revelation, also published by this newspaper yesterday, was that his captors subjected him to horrendous torture while in detentionfacilities probably located within the city.
Kakwenza’s story came barely a week after Samuel Masereka, the coordinator of the National Unity Platform (NUP) in Kasese District, said he was tortured terribly while in the hands of security operatives for 34 days. He displayed a body littered with torture marks and walked with difficulty.
It is not the first time that such reports have emerged. We have seen suspects in former police spokesperson Felix Kaweesi murder case appear in court with scarred bodies.
At the end of 2016, Rwenzururu Kingdom royal guards, who had been arrested after a joint security force launched an offensive against the kingdom, killing hundreds of people, were arraigned in court with torture wounds allover their bodies.
Uganda has for the past three decades heralded itself as a democratic nation that respects and guarantees freedom in all forms and fames itself for restoration of peace and security.
The events over the past years, with little or muted condemnation from all arms of government, point to a very worrying direction for the country.
There might be more people in detention as implied by Kakwenza in his narration but who do not have a voice to fight for their release. Families have been left destitute after their breadwinners are disappeared or killed.
The image of Uganda within and abroad is definitely being tainted by very blood drop from a torture victim.
The media spaces have been democratized, thanks to social media, so much that anyone across the globe can know whatever happens in any part of the world. Uganda, therefore, has a cocktail of issues to sully its image.
Certainly we cannot take this direction. We have courts that we feel should be competent enough to handle cases instead of subjecting citizens to torture and then pretend to arraign them before courts of law.
Many 36-year-olds have been told of the excesses of the past regimes. We hope they are not returning in this day.
