Detained Uganda opposition politician on hunger strike moved to hospital, lawmaker says
KAMPALA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye, who went on a hunger strike last week, has been rushed to hospital after his health deteriorated, said an allied lawmaker and a local television broadcaster.
A long-time political opponent and critic of President Yoweri Museveni, Besigye has been in detention at a maximum security facility in the capital Kampala since November.
His lawyers say he was "kidnapped" in neighbouring Kenya where he had travelled and forcefully transported back to Uganda, where he was charged in the military's General Court Martial (GCM) with various offences including illegal weapons possession.
"Amidst very heavy security deployment, Dr. Besigye has been brought to a clinic at Bugolobi Village Mall," Francis Mwijukye, a lawmaker allied with Besigye, said in a post on the X platform late on Sunday, referring to a vast shopping mall in the Bugolobi suburb of Kampala.
"He was being pushed in a wheel chair."
The local NTV broadcaster also reported late on Sunday that Besigye had been taken to the health facility and that the area was under "tight security".
NTV quoted a family member as saying Besigye "is not in a good situation, the situation is bad".
Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said in a post on the X social media platform late on Sunday that the government was fast tracking the transfer of his case to civilian courts, effectively ending his military prosecution.
Last month Uganda's Supreme Court in a ruling said civilians should not be prosecuted in military courts, calling it unconstitutional.
Many Ugandans, including fellow opposition leader, pop star Bobi Wine and a medical doctors association, took to social media over the weekend to express outrage and demand Besigye's release and unrestricted access to him by his doctors.
The public anger and calls for his release mounted after Besigye was brought to court on Friday and appeared visibly weak, walking with difficulty and struggling to move his tongue to moisten his dry lips. His lawyers told local media last week after visiting him in prison that his health was deteriorating.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump toy tariffs: Supreme Court won't speed decision on challenge
More: Hasbro layoffs: Toymaker restructures due to tariff struggles and weak demand The company, which makes educational toys, won a court ruling on May 29 that Trump cannot unilaterally impose tariffs using the emergency legal authority he had cited for them. That ruling is currently on hold, leaving the tariffs in place for now. Learning Resources asked the Supreme Court to take the rare step of immediately hearing the case to decide the legality of the tariffs, effectively leapfrogging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, where the case is pending. More: 'Two dolls instead of 30': Trump acknowledges prices will force consumers to cut back More: Second federal court blocks Trump tariffs, this time for Illinois toy importers Two district courts have ruled that Trump's tariffs are not justified under the law he cited for them, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Both of those cases are on appeal. No court has yet backed the sweeping emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed.
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Justice Jackson questions if `monied interests' are favored by court
Jackson's dissent came two weeks after she wrote that the court is sending a "troubling message" that it's departing from basic legal standards for the Trump administration. The court's six conservatives include three appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term. In a case involving the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on June 6 said Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency could have complete access to the data of millions of Americans kept by the U.S. Social Security Administration. Jackson said a majority of the court didn't require the administration to show it would be "irreparably harmed" by not getting immediate access, one of the legal standards for intervention. "It says, in essence, that although other stay applicants must point to more than the annoyance of compliance with lower court orders they don't like," she wrote, "the Government can approach the courtroom bar with nothing more than that and obtain relief from this Court nevertheless." More: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can throw a punch. Literally. The court's two other liberals - Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - also disagreed with the majority's opinion in the Trump case. But Kagan joined the conservatives June 20 in siding with the fuel producers. Jackson, however, said there were multiple reasons the court shouldn't have heard the case from among the thousands of appeals it receives. Those reasons include the fact that the change in administrations was likely to make the dispute go away. But by ruling in the fuel industry's favor, Jackson wrote, the court made it easier for others to challenge anti-pollution laws. "And I worry that the fuel industry's gain comes at a reputational cost for this Court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests," she said in her dissent. A clock, a mural, a petition: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's chambers tell her story Jackson said the court's "remarkably lenient approach" to the fuel producers' challenge stands in contrast to the "stern stance" it's taken in cases involving fair housing, desegrated schools or privacy concerns. In response, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who authored the 7-2 opinion, pointed to other cases he said show the court is even handed. Those include its decision last year that anti-abortion doctors couldn't challenge the Food and Drug Administration's handling of a widely used abortion drug. More: Supreme Court revives suit against cop who fatally shot driver stopped for unpaid tolls "In this case, as we have explained, this Court's recent standing precedents support the conclusion that the fuel producers have standing," Kavanaugh wrote about the industry's ability to sue. "The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders," he wrote.
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump news at a glance: Day of environmental setbacks across US after judicial and executive decisions
It was a day of environmental setbacks across the US on Friday after the Trump administration moved to keep two Michigan coal plants open and the US supreme court handed a win to fossil fuel firms in an emissions case. Already, the US Department of Energy (DoE) has ordered the JH Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan to remain open beyond its 31 May closure date, while the administration is expected to prolong the life of the Monroe power plant on Lake Erie, scheduled to begin closing in 2028. The plants emit about 45% of the state's greenhouse gas pollution. Opponents say the order has little support in Michigan, could cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and is ideologically driven. The state's utilities have said they did not ask for the plants to stay online, and the Trump administration did not communicate with stakeholders before the order, a spokesperson for the Michigan Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities and manages the state's grid, told the Guardian. Here are the key stories at a glance: Fossil fuel companies are able to challenge California's ability to set stricter standards reducing the amount of polluting coming from cars, the US supreme court has ruled in a case that is set to unravel one of the key tools used to curb planet-heating emissions in recent years. The conservative-dominated court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver that California has received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars. Read the full story Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was released from US immigration detention, where he has been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel's war in Gaza. The release came after an order from a federal judge who said during a hearing on Friday that Khalil was not a flight risk and 'is not a danger to the community, period, full stop'. Read the full story A teenage student and soccer standout was arrested by immigration authorities four days after his high school graduation ceremony in Ohio and deported to Honduras this week, his family has said. Emerson Colindres, 19, had no criminal record and was attending a regularly scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Cincinnati when he was detained on 4 June, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Read the full story Elizabeth Warren has confronted the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, over reports that the state department is considering redirecting $500m from USAID to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Israel- and US-backed Gaza food delivery group. Read the full story California's challenge to the Trump administration's military deployment on the streets of Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom in San Francisco on Friday after an appeals court handed Donald Trump a key procedural win in the case. Read the full story The president failed to mark Juneteenth, commemorating the ending of slavery in the US, until he posted on Thursday night that there are 'too many non-working holidays' in the country. Read the full story Experts fear the US is now in worse shape to respond to a pandemic than before 2020 amid controversial dismissals at health agencies and lacklustre responses to the bird flu and measles outbreaks. The Trump administration has terminated 639 employees at Voice of America and its parent organisation in the latest round of sweeping cuts that have reduced the international broadcasting service to a fraction of its former size. The US supreme court declined to speed up consideration of whether to take up a challenge to Trump's tariffs even before lower courts have ruled in the dispute. Catching up? Here's what happened on 19 June 2025.
