Uganda’s prime opposition chief mentioned on Thursday that he was seized on the airport and put underneath home arrest following his return from overseas, a declare the authorities denied regardless of a historical past of crackdowns by the East African nation’s autocratic ruler in opposition to his main challenger.
The opposition determine, Bobi Wine, mentioned males he didn’t know had grabbed him after he disembarked from his flight at Entebbe Worldwide Airport. They twisted his arms behind his again, he mentioned, and he was whisked into a close-by automotive, sandwiched between two males with weapons and pushed off.
Afterward, he was transferred to a van the place, he mentioned, a number of troopers sat on him and kicked his head with their boots. Mr. Wine was then pushed to his residence within the capital, Kampala, the place he mentioned dozens of safety officers have been already stationed inside and outdoors the compound.
“I’m alive however I’m underneath home arrest,” Mr. Wine mentioned in a cellphone interview on Thursday afternoon.
Uganda’s police power denied that he had been arrested, saying that they’d “efficiently escorted” Mr. Wine to his residence, the place he was with household and buddies. “Disregard rumors of his arrest by propagandists,” the police power mentioned in a press release on X, the social media platform previously referred to as Twitter.
Mr. Wine, who was returning to Uganda after a two-week journey overseas, mentioned safety forces had overwhelmed the gatekeeper and gardener at his residence, squeezing his genitals. The guard was taken to the hospital for therapy, he mentioned.
He additionally mentioned that 300 of his supporters, in addition to two dozen authorities officers from the opposition, together with journalists overlaying his return, had been arrested within the capital and elsewhere. These figures couldn’t instantly be confirmed.
Mr. Wine mentioned safety forces had fired tear fuel and stay bullets to disperse supporters close to his residence. After turning on the digicam on his cellphone, he pointed to a monitor from out of doors cameras that confirmed safety forces patrolling the streets round his residence, in addition to a number of police patrol pickup vehicles and jail vans.
“I’m surrounded by the navy and no one is allowed to go away and nobody is allowed to come back,” he mentioned.
Safety forces additionally sealed off the workplaces of Mr. Wine’s social gathering and barred folks from getting into or leaving, in response to the social gathering’s secretary normal, David Lewis Rubongoya.
“The degrees of concern are unimaginable,” Mr. Rubongoya mentioned in a put up on X.
Mr. Wine, whose actual title is Robert Kyagulanyi, rose in recent times to turn out to be the most important challenger to the decades-long rule of President Yoweri Museveni. A key Western ally, Mr. Museveni has ruled the landlocked nation with an iron grip since 1986, muzzling the press, jailing dissidents and successful six phrases in workplace by way of elections marred by allegations of fraud and rigging.
Mr. Wine, a musician-turned-lawmaker, challenged Mr. Museveni for the presidency within the 2021 elections. Within the months earlier than and after the bloody and contentious vote, Mr. Wine was overwhelmed, tear-gassed and detained, and safety forces surrounded his home.
The authorities additionally kidnapped his supporters and subjected them to merciless therapy, human rights teams say. Mr. Wine and others have accused Mr. Museveni, his son and different prime authorities officers of committing crimes in opposition to humanity, and have filed a case in opposition to them within the Worldwide Felony Court docket.
Mr. Wine’s lawyer, Bruce Afran, condemned the authorities’ actions on Thursday, saying they have been “designed to intervene with the essential proper of Ugandans to have interaction in political exercise, and to dam the opposition chief from assembly with the folks of his nation.”
Mr. Wine’s declare of mistreatment comes because the Ugandan authorities faces widespread condemnation for enacting one of many world’s most punitive anti-gay legal guidelines. America and the European Union have condemned the legislation, and the World Financial institution has halted any new funding to the nation.
Mr. Wine’s journey took him to Canada, the USA and South Africa. Apart from holding political rallies along with his supporters overseas, he additionally attended screenings of a brand new documentary referred to as “Bobi Wine: The Individuals’s President.”
“They’re punishing me for the movie,” Mr. Wine mentioned when requested why he thought the federal government had positioned him underneath home arrest. “They’re punishing me for exposing them.”
On Thursday night, Mr. Wine mentioned that he was at residence along with his spouse, the activist Barbie Kyagulanyi, and that his household had been left in disarray.
He mentioned he had been wanting ahead to taking his 15-year-old daughter out for a birthday dinner. His 8-year-old daughter was feeling “traumatized” and confused, he mentioned. And his 13-year-old son was stranded at a roadblock and unable to get residence from faculty.
“He’s caught,” he mentioned. “I now have to barter to permit my son to come back again residence.”
