Police detained a senior official of Uganda’s largest opposition party, National Unity Platform (NUP), on Monday while he attended a court appearance by his colleagues, a lawmaker from the party and a police spokesperson said.
Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, who is NUP’s deputy spokesperson, was forced into a vehicle just outside a magistrate’s court in the capital Kampala, Joel Ssenyonyi, the leader of the opposition in parliament said.
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Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke told Reuters that officers had detained Mufumbiro, but declined to give reasons for the action or say when he would be produced in court.
In recent months NUP, headed by pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, and other opposition parties have decried what they say is a campaign of abductions and torture of opposition officials by security forces ahead of elections that are due early next year.
Both police and the military have in the past denied targeting the opposition and say that only suspects in criminal cases are detained. They have also rejected accusations of mistreatment of opposition figures.
Ssenyonyi said that Mufumbiro had gone to court on Monday to attend a bail hearing for NUP members who have been in detention for months over what the party has called politically motivated charges.
He was “violently grabbed and pushed” into a minivan, Ssenyonyi said in a post on X, accusing President Yoweri Museveni’s government of “cowardice and criminality”.
One of those whose bail hearing was being held on Monday was opposition activist Eddie Mutwe.
In May, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the head of the military who is also Museveni’s son, said on X that he was holding Mutwe in his basement, after the activist had been missing for days.
Mutwe was later produced in court and charged with robbery among other charges. The justice minister, Norbert Mao, said at the time that Mutwe showed signs of having been tortured. Mao did not say who was responsible but called on the courts to deal swiftly with Mutwe’s case.
