Uganda opposition supporters grabbed in court siege
01 Mar 2007 19:12:10 GMT Source: Reuters
By Tim Cocks KAMPALA, March 1 (Reuters) - Armed men in military uniforms surrounded Uganda's high court on Thursday and seized six opposition supporters who had just been bailed on treason charges, an eyewitness said. The gunmen beat the six men and pistol whipped their lawyer unconscious with a rifle butt before dragging the men back to jail. The defendants had been charged, alongside opposition leader Kizza Besiyge, also present at the hearing, with plotting a rebellion. The court had ruled they should be granted bail. The attack echoed a similar assault on a Kampala court in 2005, when paramilitaries tried to re-arrest twelve defendants. "They were filing in the bail forms when we realised the court was besieged by armed men in military uniforms," opposition parliamentarian Beti Kamya, a member of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, told Reuters. She said the lawyer suffered head wounds and needed hospital treatment. The defendants were returned to prison, she added. "They were beaten very badly, then taken away," she said. "We wonder why they even bothered with the courts." The six men, accused of being members of the People's Redemption Army rebel group, were first arrested in 2003 after the authorities said they were found with weapons in northwestern Uganda. The FDC accuses the government of fabricating the charges to crack down on political opposition. Besiyge's political rallies are frequently broken up and his supporters arrested. Western donors who once praised President Yoweri Museveni as the leader of a new breed of African statesmen are becoming more critical of what diplomats say is an autocratic style and iron-fisted treatment of opposition parties. Donors cut millions in aid when Besigye was jailed on treason and rape charges ahead of the February elections. Museveni won with 59 percent of the vote against Besigye's 37 percent amid allegations of fraud and intimidation.
