Ugandan opposition figure reportedly detained
The wife of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye claims that he has been abducted and is currently detained in a military prison.
In a post on X, Winnie Byanyima stated that her husband was captured in Nairobi, Kenya, last Saturday during a book launch event.
“I have now been reliably informed that he is being held in a military jail in Kampala,” she said, calling on the Ugandan government to release him.
BBC News has reached out to the Ugandan government for comment on the matter.
Besigye, 68, led the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party and ran unsuccessfully in four presidential elections against the long-serving incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.
“We, his family and lawyers, demand to see him,” Byanyima wrote on X.
“He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”
Winnie Byanyima is a human rights advocate and executive director of Unaids, the joint UN programme which was set up to eradicate Aids.
Kizza Besigye used to be Museveni’s personal doctor but he went on to become an opposition leader and has referred to leader of the east African country as a “dictator”.
He has alleged that previous presidential elections were rigged – a claim denied by the government.
The opposition figure has been arrested on numerous occasions in the past.
On one occasion he was shot in the hand, on another he suffered eye injuries after being doused in pepper spray.
The authorities have accused him of provoking them, and he has been charged with inciting violence.
