Uganda Women’s Movement Decries Security Raids On Women

By Black Star News Photos: Wikimedia Commons The Women Movement in Uganda has called for law-abiding investigations in the country and urged Parliament, the Judiciary, religious leaders and all institutions to defend democracy, human rights and citizens’ civic rights. The women’s rights advocates equally addressed their concerns demanding that the government and security forces respect constitutional freedoms in the country as they roundly condemned raids, arbitrary arrests and harassment of citizens now rampant in Uganda. Such actions, according to women rights activist, Penelope Sanyu, (above) speaking for the Uganda Women’s Movement at the June 26 press conference in Kampala, are “tactics of repression”. The women activists coalesced to show solidarity with one of their own, Dr Miria Matembe, the former Ethics and Integrity minister whose home was raided on June 24. Matembe, an acidic critic of Gen Yoweri Museveni and his Chief of Defense Forces son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, was fired from cabinet in May 2003. She was among Museveni’s then contemporaries—now-late and former East African Community Affairs minister, Eriya Kategaya and then long-time Local Government Minister, Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali, who opposed the lifting of the statute that limited presidential tenure to only two five-year intervals. The statute was lifted by Parliament in July 2005. It is reported that soldiers raided Matembe’s house in Luzira in the outskirts of the capital, Kampala, looking for her up to the bedroom and bathroom, but she was not in the house at the time. However, her next of kin have expressed worry that her whereabouts are still unknown and her telephone has since gone off air. “Why are you raiding women’s homes and going to their bedrooms? It has been done to Hon. Miria Matembe [and] Sarah Bireete. Respect the privacy of Ugandans’ homes!” MP Flavia Kalule, implored on June 26. Constitutional lawyer, Sarah Bireete, who heads the Kampala-based East and Horn of Africa’s constitutional watchdog—Center for Constitutional Governance—told the press conference that after the raid at Matembe’s house, the raiders turned to her house where they “turned everything upside down, broke doors and stole money”. The Uganda Women’s Movement organized the press conference in solidarity with Matembe whose courage has, for decades, expanded the democratic and feminist imagination of Uganda. “PROTECT FREEDOM OF SPEECH….IN HONOR OF DR MIRIA MATEMBE,” read some of the placards at the press conference. “At a time when voices of integrity are being silenced, the Ugandan women’s movement extends its deepest respect, solidarity and concern for Hon.Dr. Miria Matembe, a woman whose courage has for decades, expanded the democratic and feminist imagination of Uganda,” proclaimed the women, calling for the stopping of attacks on women. “Long before gender equality became the language of development partners and policy documents, Dr. Matembe insisted that women deserved dignity not as a favor from the State, but as a matter of justice,” the Uganda Women’s Movement added. Lawyers in Uganda, meanwhile, started their strike on June 26 in a show of solidarity with their incarcerated and bail-denied yet sickly colleague, former Kampala Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago. The lawyers are also protesting what they consider human rights abuses, erosion of rule of law and constitutional rule in the country.