Do not mock victims if you cannot protect their human rights, Bobi Wine tells UHRC boss
The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga, has on numerous occasions tabled a list of NUP supporters who are missing and alleged to have been arrested or abducted by state security agencies.
The Chairperson of Uganda Human Rights Commission, Mariam Fauzat Wangadya, recently told NBS Television that the National Unity Platform (NUP), an opposition political party, is vulgarizing the word ‘abduction’ in reference to the ongoing countrywide arrest of political opponents and activists.
She further told the broadcaster that there are no abductions ‘targeting a particular group of people as claimed by politicians.’
This has not settled well with some of the opposition politicians, especially those in NUP, the political party whose members continue to be illegally arrested or kidnapped by unknown people only to turn out that they are either in police custody or in military detention.
Among those that have reacted to Wangadya’s comments is NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine who described the UHRC boss as a compromised and incompetent person.
“Wangadya cannot distinguish between an arrest and an abduction! Ugandans are waylaid by armed thugs, bundled into unmarked vans, tortured and held incommunicado for months or even years. Some killed in detention! She calls them arrests!
“You may be a Museveni cadre, but you should have some respect for Ugandans. If you cannot protect human rights, do not mock the victims! If she had any sense of shame or respect for the office she occupies, she would have long resigned.
The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga, has on numerous occasions tabled a list of NUP supporters who are missing and alleged to have been arrested or abducted by state security agencies.
This week, Atkins Godfrey Katusabe, the Member of Parliament of Bukonzo West constituency wrote to the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Annet Among, highlighting the continued abduction and disappearance of his constituents.
Wangadya and the Commission she heads have come under scrutiny for looking the other way as opposition political supporters and activists are arrested inhumanely, tortured and others killed by the state.
