Opposition MP’s boycott Parliament
The Leader of the Opposition, in Parliament Hon Mathias Mpuuga has announced that opposition legislators will boycott plenary for two weeks until the the plight of tortured and missing persons is addressed.
The Opposition MP’s led by Mpuuga marched out of Parliament chaired by the Deputy Speaker Anita Among and stationed outside where they started chanting “we want freedom,we want peace,”. The legislators then proceeded to sing the National Anthem.
Hon Mpuuga later told journalists that they intend to return to Parliament in two weeks with a motion on the plight of tortured and missing persons. He explained that the security agencies have continued to torture and detain suspects at ungazzeted places, denying them access to justice in the courts of law.
“Our first action is this protest, it will go on for the next two weeks but in the meantime we shall be coming here everyday to inform the country of our next course of action,and I want to inform families of the victims that this must end now. If Mps on the ruling party are shameless and believe that torture is preserved for only those against them they can go on ,but I can assure them,they have no business as long as citizens are being terrorized,” He said
This is not the first time that opposition legislators are walking out of plenary, in October, 2021, the Mps walked out of the August House in protest of the rearrest of their colleagues Allan Ssewanyana and Muhammed Ssegirnya.
Opposition MP’s boycott Parliament
They returned to Parliament a week later and threatened a similar protests if missing National Unity Platform party supporters are not accounted for. Mpuuga threatened to repeat a boycott on the August house if the government didn’t respond to the whereabouts of 19 missing National Unity Platform party supporters.
He made the statement on the floor of parliament during the plenary chaired by the Hon. Deputy speaker Anita Among.
“We need the government to respond to the state of those citizens who were taken by state actors, they are not in court, the trace in any prison did not yield any output,so we don’t want to leave parliament next time because of those 19 citizens,” He said in October
The Deputy Speaker Among assured Mpuuga that government officials including Security Minister Jim Muhwezi would meet with the LOP to devise a way forward.
In January 2021, 19 people were arrested in Kyotera District by unknown gunmen who are said to have taken them to unknown destinations.
In the 10th parliament ,the Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen Jejje Odongo, tabled a list of 177 NUP supporters who were held in different places. This was about a quarter of NUP paty list that had 680 names of missing persons.
Of the government list, only 71 names appeared on the NUP list, leaving the whereabouts of 106 people unknown.
A week later, the NUP party president, Robert Kyagulanyi alias, Bobi Wine, indicated that since he called for peaceful protests, the number of supporters who are being held had risen from 423 to 512.
Compiled by Zainab Ali
