Kayihura on spot over claims to overthrow govt
SOURCE: THE DAILY MONITOR, 19 OCTOBER 2011
Kayihura at the press conference where he claimed treason charges would
be preferred against the arrested walk to work demonstrators.
Police chief Kale Kayihura yesterday accused FDC
Women’s League chairperson Ingrid Turinawe of plotting to overthrow the
government, and announced 15 opposition activists taken into custody on
Sunday for attending a meeting she addressed in Kampala, face treason
charges.
But Ms Turinawe, who spoke to this newspaper by
telephone, last night, said Maj. Gen. Kayihura is a “liar” who has
failed in his attempts to link pressure group Activists 4 Change,
organisers of the revived walk-to-work demonstrations, to terrorism.
“He has sold a lot of lies to Ugandans,” said Ms
Turinawe, “He should be ignored. What he is struggling to achieve is to
intimidate opposition activists and find ways of detaining us for a
longer time.” The FDC leader said she was not in hiding and dared
police to adduce incriminating evidence to justify plots to arrest her.
The police chief had said A4C has hoodwinked the
public into believing the walk protest over soaring cost of living,
which resumed on Monday, is an “innocent” civil disobedience, yet their
motivation is to stir anarchy.
He said: “It is a deliberate and well-planned plot
to overthrow the government. The public should be aware that any act
done in furtherance of any such plot is also deemed treason.”
Police last evening circulated to media houses
copies of an audio recording that Gen. Kayihura earlier in the day told
journalists contained treasonable utterances Ms Turinawe allegedly made
in her Sunday address to opposition youth, code-named ‘commanders’, at
the Inter-party Cooperation (IPC) offices on Katonga Road in Kampala.
We could not independently verify
authenticity of the audio, and a police detective told us in confidence
last night that Ms Turinawe’s statements being circulated was recorded
on September 23, and not three days ago as the IGP said.
That notwithstanding, Gen. Kayihura said: “The 15
(opposition activists in police detention) are going to be charged with
treason. We have submitted their files to the Director of Public
Prosecutions for advice.”
Legal minds yesterday faulted the charges as
“unsustainable” since, according to human rights lawyer, Mr Ladislaus
Rwakafuzi, the law envisages treason as the plot to or change of
government by force of arms, not words. “Kayihura is a political
commissar for the ruling NRM party but should not, as head of police
which is a civil force, be a politician,” he said.
Amnesty
International’s Godfrey Odongo urged government “must unequivocally move
to allow peaceful demonstrations and police role should be to regulate,
not block the assemblies by using excessive force”.
“If that right has to be limited,” he said, “it
must be for a specific and justifiable purpose not the broad reason that
the demonstrations will turn violent. That amounts to government intent
to ban peaceful assemblies.”
Article 29 of the (amended) 1995 Constitution
provides for freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration, and
limitations imposed under Article 43 that police often cite as the basis
of their intervention to forestall infringement of other people’s
rights, requires such restrictions should be “acceptable and
demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society”.
The police insistence to
permit when and where individuals should hold rallies instead of
regulating the processions by offering security is unconstitutional,
argued Mr Odongo.
The Uganda Peoples Congress last evening weighed in
support of the walk-to-work demonstrations over an economy the party
said was in “shambles” and denounced Gen. Kayihura’s claims of treason
charges against the opposition activists as “arbitrary, hollow and
treasonous”.
“The IGP’s announcement fits well in President
Museveni’s mischievous plan to deny bail to his political opponents in
order to extract submission from Ugandans,” read UPC deputy Spokesman
Moses Nuwagaba’s statement. “This explains the change of tactic by the
IGP to, this time; use a hammer to kill a mosquito.”
At the height of first
phase of the walk protest in May, which put the nation on tenterhooks,
and clashes between demonstrators and security forces resulted in 10
deaths, mostly from gunshot wounds, President Museveni proposed that the
Constitution be amended to deny suspected economic saboteurs and
rioters, among other offenders, bail until they serve at least six
months on remand.
