All forms of political opposition here are met with crackdowns from President Museveni’s government
- Bobi Wine is leader of the National Unity Platform
Uganda is experiencing its worst wave of political oppression in decades. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of supporters of opposition parties to President General Yoweri Museveni have been abducted, detained and tortured in recent months. Like many, I bear the scars of the baton, have felt the sting of teargas and endured unlawful detention. But I know that this is not personal. It isn’t about me.
Many others, whose only offence is to exercise constitutionally entrenched rights and freedoms, have been clobbered, abducted, tortured and put on show trial. The atrocities are numerous: the unresolved carnage of the Kayunga shootings in 2009 that saw 40 left dead, the massacres in Rwenzururu where police and military killed more than 150, or the November 2020 killings in which more than 50 protesters lost their lives. Not to mention the shooting of my driver, Yasin Kawuma, by police forces on 13 August 2018 at a political rally. He was only 27, and left behind a widow and children. A personal tragedy, but also just another incident in the brutal crackdown under way on supporters of opposition parties in Uganda.
