Kabale Municipality MP Nicholas Kamara being arrested during a protest on Monday. Kamara and other FDC members were on their way to deliver a protest note at the Kenyan Embassy for arresting 36 FDC activists who had travelled for a workshop.
Ssemujju Nganda (Kira Municipality) has asked the government why he, alongside other FDC members, were brutally arrested and tortured while they attempted to deliver a protest note to the Kenyan High Commission in Uganda and dumped in a police van he claims is used to carry dead dogs and driven by a police driver who drives like he is high on drugs.
Ssemujju’s concerns about police brutality come at the time. Some young Ugandans arrested during the March to Parliament demonstrations in July 2024 accused police of sodomizing and torturing them during their arrest and detention, while Hassan Kirumira MP (Katikamu South) accused police of throwing into a van with pigs following his recent arrest, an action he described as extremely degrading given his faith as a Muslim.
“Yesterday, I was brutally arrested, and we were taking a protest to the Kenyan High Commission in Uganda because of our colleagues who were kidnapped and tortured from Kenya, only to be met with angry policemen. We were dumped in that vehicle that looks like it carries dogs and even dead ones, and the person driving that vehicle behaves like he is on drugs. We also thank God that we survived him. Nicholas Kamara (Kabale Municipality) and I, with our other colleagues, were charged with public nuisance, that two MPs of our caliber were a public nuisance, going to deliver a protest note to the Kenyan embassy. The Kenyan isn’t a kiosk of Uganda; we even go there to receive visas. When I raised this matter last week, he said we can’t explain; when I went to Kenya to seek an explanation, they arrested us and beat us. Do they want us to go to heaven? I need an explanation from the government. People kidnapped from Kenya and beaten, you know, this government of a “freedom fighter” that was in Luwero now the same Museveni is making MPs being brutally arrested, sitting them in the mud, and charging them with public nuisance. Maybe that Museveni disappeared and we have another person, so can we be told why we are being mistreated in our country to this level?” said Ssemujju.
Attorney General Kiwanuka Kiryowa in response said that he was going to investigate and find out what Ssemujju was doing at the time, which prompted the state to charge him with being a public nuisance. He also reminded Ssemujju that holding a position as Member of Parliament doesn’t exempt him from being declared a public nuisance by law-enforcing agencies.
“I think what Ssemujju is saying is quite interesting that he was charged with public nuisance and he is a whole Member of Parliament. My last reading of the law is that yes, even an honorable Member of Parliament can be a public nuisance. But I don’t know whether he was being a nuisance, but we are going to go and find out what Ssemujju was doing and come back and advise,” said Kiryowa.
“This isn’t personal; you need to look at images of how MP Kamara was arrested. I know you and I are for Express FC; this isn’t a matter for football,” added Ssemujju.