Julia Sebutinde:#Uganda sliding towards military state

[Apparently it is only now that they see this.  Uganda has been a military state for a very long time and only a naive person would say it is starting to happen. Oh well, but she is on the bench as a judge so I suppose people will now pay attention.  Let me get another article on militarization.  Coming right up]

Justice Julia Sebutinde says Uganda is sliding towards the military state like it was in past regimes.

Sebutinde was answering questions from the media on findings by The Women’s Situation Room Uganda [WSRUganda], a platform for early warning and a rapid response mechanism against election related violence and conflict.

Members of WSR Uganda include Justice Julia Sebutinde, Prof Joy C Kwesiga and Yvette Chesson-Wureh.

“You can’t have peace without justice,” Sebutinde, a member of the International Court of Justice, said.

She was concerned with the repeated arrests of Forum for Democratic Change [FDC] presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye.

Besigye was re-arrested this morning by police and detained at Nagalama police station in Mukono.

According to Sebutinde, the continuous arrests and harassment of the opposition paints the state as a violator of human rights.

She said suppression cannot address the country’s quest for peace and justice.

“The peace is that maintained by force or through force or coerced through military might on the street, will be short-lived.”

She added: “I don’t know how long we are going to maintain this, without returning to a military state.”

Sebutinde says there is need to find a way of returning to normalcy because in the end life will have to return to normal otherwise citizens will feel their rights are being trampled upon.

Justice Sebutinde called upon government respect those opposed to the outcomes of the presidential and parliamentary elections.

“If some of the disputers are harassed, kept in their homes or elsewhere…

They need time to collect evidence if they are to go to court. They need to exercise their rights to go to court.”

She asked government to allow opposition a chance.

https://www.theinsider.ug/julia-sebutindeuganda-sliding-towards-military-state/