Uganda Human Rights Commission ( UHRC) has come out to support opposition’s red ribbon campaign against presidential age limit removal, saying it is one’s freedom to choose what to put on.
Speaking from the UHRC offices in Kampala today, the commissioner of the body Meddie Mulumba said they have on several occasions seen NRM legislators put on yellow ribbons during consultations and they have never been handled the same way opposition MPs are.
He noted that another growing vice is the excessive force and brutality that police have employed while handling Ugandans demonstrating against the bill.
Mulumba said in this month alone, they have received 165 cases of torture reported to them, a trend he said is so alarming.
“We don’t want police to use excessive force as they do their work. Any policeman or woman, who will go a head to use excessive force, will be personally held accountable,” Mulumba cautioned.
He added that police should start interpreting laws as they are and stop discrimination based on the colour of clothes that people choose to put on, saying putting on red or yellow is one’s freedom.
It should be noted that since the consultations about age limit bill that was tabled by Igara West legislator Rapheal Magyezi, one person has so far been killed while others are still nursing serious wounds.
Both police and Rukungiri people, where FDC’S Kizza Besigye has gone to decampaign the bill, denied being behind the death. In the same scuffle, another person had his kidney shuttered by a bullet.
For now, Mulumba says they are looking at organising several meetings with various security agencies in the country to ensure people’s freedoms are respected.
Red ribbons were launched by opposition MPs as a sign of opposing the amendment of article 102 (b) that most Ugandans think is meant to make President Museveni a life president, by removing the upper age limit that currently restricts anybody above 75 years from contesting for presidency.
They have since been synonymous with the Togikwatako campaign that was launched by DP earlier this month.
The Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) was established under the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda.
The decision to establish this body that monitors the human rights situation in the country was in recognition of Uganda’s violent and turbulent history that had been characterized by arbitrary arrests, detention without trial, torture and brutal repression with impunity on the part of security organs during the pre and post independence era.