Uganda’s opposition leader out on bail
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye looks on at the Kasangati police station after being arrested close to his house on April 11, 2011. Ugandan police arrested Besigye as he tried to stage a protest against rising prices amid a ban on demonstrations. Besigye, who was President Yoweri Museveni’s main challenger in the February 18 presidential elections he claims were rigged, had called for a ‘walk-to-work’ demonstration against rising fuel and other prices.
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was out on bail on Wednesday afternoon after spending six days in jail for leading a series of “walk to work” protests against the spiralling cost of living.
Besigye was arrested last week and denied bail when the presiding magistrate said she was “too busy” to hear his bail application.
On Wednesday there was confusion as the High Court issued a last minute order that Besigye’s bail application should be decided not in Kampala where he was arrested but in Nakasongola, 60 miles north of the capital where he was jailed over the Easter weekend.
Bail was granted on condition that Besigye does not breach the peace over the next seven months, terms that his party the Forum for Democratic Change has called “ridiculous”.
Activists for Change, the civil action group coordinating the bi-weekly protest walks that Besigye has led, says that it will go ahead with another planned “walk to work” on Thursday.
It remains to be seen whether Besigye will participate and whether Ugandas security services will respond with the same toughness they have shown towards previous demonstrations.
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