Kakwenza resumes social media rants
Embattled novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija has started a social media war just hours after he fled the country, reportedly via Rwanda Airlines for treatment.
News of his departure spread like a bush fire shortly after his lawyers confirmed he had left, attracting mixed reaction from the citizens on social media.
His lawyer Eron Kiiza told the media that their client devised other means to travel abroad for specialized medical attention after the Buganda Road Chief Magistrates Court denied Kakwenza’s request to have his passport returned to enable him travel.
Kiiza says Kakwenza decided to run aboard the Kigali International Airport to another Country in Africa before proceeding to Europe to seek proper medical attention. He is largely believed to be in Malawi.
Kakwenza had previously claimed torture by state operatives following his release from Kitalya Government Prison. He claimed they injected him with substances in his feet and hands six times every six hours, denied him sleep, and made to dance with a jerrycan full of water.
In his renewed social media battles on Facebook and twitter with his alleged tormentors, Kakwenza has paraded a body marked with stripes from canes and alluded to the arrest of those involved directly and indirectly in his plight.
Kakwenza also attacked the presiding Magistrate Douglas Singiza claiming he acted unlawful by denying him his passport and access to treatment.
In another tweet Kakwenza tries to defend his prior statements after one of his followers reminds him that abusing a Judicial officer is tantamount to contempt of Court.
On Wednesday, the Commander of land forces Lt Gen. Muhoozi denied knowing Kakwenza and dismissed reports he fled through Rwanda. He alssays he spoke to Rwandan President P .Kagame who told him that Kakwenza wasn’t in Rwanda.
Kakwenza resumes social media rants
Kakwenza was arrested on December 28, 2021, from his home in Kisaasi, a Kampala suburb, and held incommunicado until January 11, 2022, when he was produced in court on two cases of offensive communication.
According to the Prosecutors, Kakwenza used his Twitter handle @KakwenzaRukira to post a series of tweets about President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his son Lt General Muhoozi Kainerugaba with no purpose of legitimate communication. In one of the tweets, Kakwenza refers to the President as an election thief and in another, he calls Muhoozi overweight and intellectually bankrupt.
The prosecutors argue that the communication was willfully and repeatedly used to disturb the peace of the president. He denied the charges. He was later released on a cash bail of 500000 shillings.
On Monday, the European Union-EU Delegation in Uganda called for a comprehensive investigation into the persistent torture cases and other human rights violations in the country.
