KAMPALA (Reuters) – Police in Uganda arrested 104 people during anti-corruption protests this week and almost all of them have been charged with public order offences, a police statement said late on Friday.
The government’s response to the street protests drew criticism from rights campaigners and the United States, which said it was “concerned” by the arrests of dozens of protesters who were “peacefully demonstrating”.
In a statement posted on its X account on Friday, the U.S. embassy in Uganda urged the government of President Yoweri Museveni to investigate allegations that some of the detained protesters had been assaulted.
Young Ugandans took to the streets on Tuesday and Thursday to protest alleged graft by elected leaders in the East African country, drawing inspiration from weeks of youth-led protests in neighbouring Kenya that led the president there to scrap proposed tax hikes.
In response, the government of long-standing leader Museveni deployed police and soldiers across the capital, Kampala, detaining dozens of protesters holding banners and shouting slogans.
In their statement, police said 100 of those arrested had been charged. It was the first time police had said how many protesters had been detained.
Rights group Amnesty International criticised the government’s “heavy-handed tactics” against the protesters earlier this week.
“Ugandan authorities must immediately and unconditionally release all those who were arrested solely for exercising their right to peaceful assembly,” it said in a statement on Thursday.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Helen Popper)
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