A notable Nigerian human rights lawyer and activist, Mr Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has officially filed ‘individual complaint’ to United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, against the unlawful detention of Robert Kyagulanyi popularly called Bobe Wine by the Ugandan Government led by President Yoweri Museveni.
Bobe Wine, a member of Parliament for Kyadondo County East constituency in Wakiso District, in Uganda’s Central Region, is an Uganda’s main opposition candidate in the recently concluded presidential election in Uganda. He contested under the platform of National Unity Platform (NUP) against President Museveni of National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Falana said, “Pursuant to the mandate of the Working Group, the Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures of the Human Right Council and the publication “Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme a Handbook for Civil Society”, I am provide information on a specific human rights case or situation in a particular country, or on a country’s law and practices with human rights implications”.
He said, “As set forth in the individual complaint, the Government of the Republic of Uganda is arbitrarily depriving activist, musician, journalist and politician, Bobe Wine of his liberty and continue to arbitrarily put him and his wife, Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi under house arrest, detained incommunicado, and without access to the outside world including his lawyers. Bobe Wine is a citizen of Uganda and contested as the presidential candidate of the National Unity Platform (NUP) in the Uganda Presidential elections of Uganda held on the 14th January, 2021 and he has been arbitrarily place under house arrest since then”.
“Mr Wine and his wife are being illegally detained for days without any criminal charges preferred against him. He has also been denied adequate supply of food by hundreds of Uganda military forces and policemen who have laid siege to his house for the umpteenth time since the election day”, he added.
The lawyer stated, “I am therefore seeking an opinion from the Working Group finding the house arrest and continue detention of Mr Wine and his wife to be arbitrary and in violation of Uganda’s constitution of 1995 (as amended) and obligations under international human rights law including the International Covenant on civil and political rights and the African Chartered of human and peoples rights to which Uganda is a state party”.
Continuing, “On the 14th day of January, Uganda’s armed forces and policemen, according , according to local media sources, numbering over 100 stormed and besieged the residence of Mr Bobe Wine and his wife. The government of Uganda had previously shutdown the internet few hours before the election. Mr Wine, a human rights activist, and hip hop artiste, was a frontline presidential candidate in the election that has been marred by series of violence and clampdown on opposition voices by the Uganda military. Sveral of Mr Bobe Wine party members including his domestic staff were arrested in the build up to the election”.
According to him, “Mr Wine has since then be restricted to the confines of his residence without access to food, his party members and friends disallowed. Social Media had been put under blackout thereby restricting Mr Wine access to the media and other means of communicating with his party members and journalists”.
“Accordingly, it is hereby requested that the Working Group consider this individual complaint a formal request for an option of the Working Group pursuant to Resolution 1997750 of the commission on Human Rights as referred by resolutions 2000036, 200331 and Human Rights Council Resolutions 64, 15/18, 2016 and 2017”, he concluded.
