The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has received new information and requests your intervention in the following situation in Uganda.
New information:
The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the end of the judicial proceedings against Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya, alias Auf, three Ugandan LGBT and HIV/AIDS activists.
According to the information received, on August 15, 2008, the prosecution told the Buganda road court that the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) had dropped the charges of trespass against Mr. Pepe Juliana Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya. The magistrate court therefore dismissed the charges against the three and acquitted them.
The Observatory welcomes the end of the judicial proceedings against Mr. Pepe Juliana Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya, and wishes to thank all the persons, organisations, and institutions that intervened in their favour.
Background information:
On June 4, 2008, Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya were arrested by the Uganda Police Force at the 2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting, taking place in Kampala, Uganda, from June 3 to 7, 2008. Along with other LGBT and HIV/AIDS activists, they were peacefully protesting against statements made by a Ugandan Government official that no funds would be directed toward HIV programmes benefiting to men who have sex with men.
Indeed, on May 2, 2008, Mr. Kihumuro Apuuli, Director General of the Uganda AIDS Commission, stated that "gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meagre resources we cannot direct our programmes at them at this time". The LGBT activists, including members of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), staged a peaceful protest at the HIV Implementers meeting to protest against the Minister’s statements and in a more general way the absence of response of the Ugandan Government to a growing HIV epidemic among the country’s LGBT community.
After they started distributing leaflets and holding up small placards demanding attention to HIV vulnerability among LGBT, Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya were arrested and immediately brought to the Jinja Road Police Station.
On June 6, 2008, the three defenders were released on a bail of 500,000 UGX (310 USD). However, they remain charged with "criminal trespass", under Section 302 of the Ugandan Penal Code. The case was adjourned to June 20, 2008.
On June 7, 2008, Mr. Usaam Mukwaya was re-arrested at the HIV Implementers’ Meeting in Kampala, before being released after four hours in police custody and was charged with "forgery". He was ordered by the police to return to the station on June 10, 2008. On that date, he reported at the police station, and the forgery charges were dropped.
On June 20, 2008, Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya appeared in Court at 9:30 am, at the Buganda Road Magistrate’s Court in Kampala. The hearing for "criminal trespass" did not take place because the State witnesses were not in court for the hearing. The Magistrate then requested the Public Prosecutor to inform her why the State witnesses were not present for the hearing. The Public Prosecutor informed the Magistrate that one of the State witnesses was not feeling well and that he had a problem of back ache. The second State witness’ mobile phone was switched off.
The lawyer of Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya requested the Magistrate to dismiss the case on grounds of the Sate witnesses not being serious with the case, as well as lack of enough evidence. However, the Magistrate adjourned the hearing to July 8, 2008.
The defendants last appeared before a Kampala court on July 25, where several witnesses of the state and the defendants were cross-examined. The judge adjourned the hearing until August 1, 2008. At previous hearings held on July 9 and 10, the judge adjourned the case following the public prosecutor’s request to give police additional time to locate new witnesses. The defendants’ lawyer presented the defendants’ conference registration forms signed by the US Global AIDS Coordinator, and a support letter signed by all the conference organizers as evidence before the court.
On July 25, 2008, a few hours after a hearing in the case, Kampala policemen abducted Auf, as he is known to his friends, an activist with Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a local organisation advocating on behalf of Uganda’s LGBT people, on his way back to the Speke Hotel. A patrol car stopped the motor taxi he was riding and four men identifying themselves as police officers took him to an undisclosed location. He was held for more than 24 hours without access to a lawyer or any reason provided for his arrest. During that time he was seriously ill-treated. His abductors asked him questions in Luganda, a local language, about the activists’ funders and supporters, and about his own role "among the homosexuals". They also demanded information from him about other individuals and their work for LGBT rights.
According to Auf, three police officers (one man and two women) pushed him through a dark corridor into a room where they made him sit on a chair. Auf saw four other men around his age in the room. One had a broken leg and the other three appeared to have been beaten. One of the women officers scraped his knuckles with a razor-like object; later, the man tied him to a machine that stretched his arms. At dawn, before releasing him, they forced him to strip to his underwear, asked him if he was a man or a woman, and made him walk around the room in his underwear. The following day, they dropped him at Mulago round-about in central Kampala.
Actions required:
Please write to the authorities of Uganda urging them to:
– Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Pepe Julian Onziema, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya;
– Put an end to all kinds of harassment against Mr. Onziema Patience, Ms. Valentine Kalende and Mr. Usaam Mukwaya as well as against all human rights defenders in Uganda;
– Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially its above-mentioned Article 1 and article 12.2, which provides that "the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the [...] Declaration";
– Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Uganda.
Addresses :
– President Kaguta Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, Office of the President of Uganda, State House Nakasero, P.O. Box 24594, Kampala, Uganda. Fax: +256 (0) 414 436 102 / + 256 41 4235459 / +256 41 4344012. E-mail: museveni@starcom.co.ug / aak@statehouse.go.ug
– Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Hon. Dr. Edward Kiddhu Makubuya, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Parliament Avenue, P.O.Box 7183, Kampala, Uganda. Fax: + 256 41 4250829. E-Mail: mojca@africaonline.co.ug
– Mr. Richard Buteera, Director of Public Prosecutions, Ministry of Justice, Constitutional Affairs & the Attorney General, Tel: +256-414-332-502/332-504, Fax: +256-414-258-565/341-316, Email: admin@dpp.go.ug
– Minister of Internal Affairs, Ruhakana Rugunda, Jinja Rd, PO Box 7191, Kampala, Uganda. Fax: + 256 414343088
– Mr. Kale Kaihura, Inspector General of Police, Telephone: +256 (0) 712 755 999
– H.E. Mr. Arsene M. Balihuta, Permanent Mission of Uganda to the United Nations in Geneva, 6 bis rue Antoine Carteret, 1202 Genève, Switzerland. Fax: + 41 22 340 70 30. Email: mission.uganda@ties.itu.int.
– Embassy of Uganda to the EU in Brussels, 317 avenue de Tervueren, 1150 Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Belgium. Fax : + 32 2.763.04.38. Email: ugembrus@brutele.be
Please also write to the embassies of Uganda in your respective country.
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Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.
The Observatory, a FIDH and OMCT venture, is dedicated to the protection of Human Rights Defenders and aims to offer them concrete support in their time of need.
The Observatory was the winner of the 1998 Human Rights Prize of the French Republic.
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