KAMPALA – Kizza Besigye, a prominent Ugandan opposition politician, was reportedly kidnapped during a book launch in Kenya over the weekend and subsequently transferred to Uganda. His wife, Winnie Byanyima, revealed on Wednesday that he is currently detained at a military jail in Kampala.
Besigye, a longtime rival of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has contested four presidential elections, each time claiming electoral fraud and intimidation. His history of arrests and detentions is well-documented.
“I urge the Ugandan government to immediately release my husband, Dr. Kizza Besigye, from his current place of detention,” Byanyima pleaded.
Efforts to reach a Ugandan military spokesperson for comment were unsuccessful. Ugandan police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke stated, “As police, we don’t have him, so we can’t make any comment.” A spokesperson for the Kenyan National Police has yet to respond to requests for comment.
In July, Kenyan authorities apprehended and deported 36 members of Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party to Uganda, where they face terrorism-related charges.
Byanyima, who is also the Executive Director of UNAIDS, shared on social media that Besigye was abducted during the book launch event for Kenyan opposition figure Martha Karua. She emphasized, “I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala. We, his family and his lawyers, demand to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”
Museveni’s government has faced repeated accusations of human rights abuses against opposition figures and their supporters, including unlawful detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Government officials consistently deny these allegations, maintaining that arrests are lawful and individuals are processed through the judicial system.
