Uganda’s citizens are paying a heavy price for critizing and opposing the 40-year repressive regime of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Opposition leaders and their supporters, lawyers, activists, and ordinary citizens continue to face unlawful arrests, politically motivated charges, harassment, enforced disappearances, torture, and illegal, prolonged detentions. 

Scores are rotting in jail with some members of the opposition detained for over 5 years without trial. Their lives, families, and aspirations are being destroyed by an escalating campaign of repression.

Uganda’s prominet figure and President Museveni’s long standing rival Kizza Besigye who has been arrested and jailed hundreds of times before since he first challeneged Museveni for Presidency in 2001, joined this long list about 10 months ago.

Besigye was abducted from Nairobi in November 2024 together with his aide Obeid Lutale and renditioned to Uganda have been in prison since then with the state not commencing any trial against them and also blatantly refusing to grant them bail.

Besigye has been ill and frail but the demands to grant him bail to get medical treatment have fllen on deaf ears.

0ver 80 supporters of the opposition party National Unity Platform are have been in prison since the last election period in 2021 while the whereabouts of over 10 are unaccounted for.

This petition calls upon Ugandans, global citizens and the International Community to demand for the release of Kizza Besigye, and all political in Uganda against whom the state has failed to prove any case.

Over the past five years, Ugandan authorities have intensified their crackdown on dissent, using the Court Martial to intimidate and silence critics of the regime. Arbitrary detentions and sham prosecutions have become tools in a broader assault on the politcal and civic space, violating both Uganda’s Constitution and international human rights obligations.

Even Uganda’s Supreme Court pronouncement in January 2021 that the military tribunal has no jurisdiction to try civillians has been ignored and most of these files have not been transferred to civillian courts.

For those unfairly detained, the consequences are devastating: families torn apart, livelihoods destroyed, and the struggle for democracy cruelly interrupted.

Our Call

We urge the Judiciary of Uganda to immediately and impartially review these cases, expedite trials, and release all detainees against whom there is no credible evidence. The continued use of detention without trial undermines the rule of law and justice.

We further call on President Yoweri Museveni and his government to end this campaign of repression, stop presiding over the arbitrary detention of political opponents, and respect the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Uganda’s Constitution and international law.

We call upon the international community to urge Ugandan government to respect its domestic and international laws.

What You Can Do

Uganda’s political prisoners cannot be forgotten. History shows that sustained public pressure works and your voice matters.

Sign this petition to demand justice.

Raise awareness by sharing this call widely.

Stand in solidarity with Uganda’s political prisoners until they are free.

#FreeDrBesigye
#FreeObeidLutale
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisonersUg