Uganda’s presidential challenger Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, also known as Bobi Wine has appealed to “fellow citizens of the world” to help him as he remained under house arrest with riot police and troops stationed outside his home.
Wine and his wife, Barbara have remained under house arrest at their home in Magere, just north of the capital, Kampala. “Nobody is allowed in, nobody is allowed out. We are stuck,” Wine said in a telephone interview with CBC News on Monday morning, adding that government security forces had not only surrounded his house but “jumped over the fence and taken control of my compound.”
On Tuesday, 19th of January, Bobi Wine tweeted, “Day Six under house arrest and we’re still stuck with an 18 months old baby who had paid a visit to her auntie (my wife) before we were raided & besieged. The Dad has been denied access to her. We have run out of food and milk. No one is allowed to leave or come into our compound.”
Nigerian Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has submitted a complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN-WGAD) over the continued house arrest of the Ugandan opposition figure. Mr. Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria urged the UN-WGAD, an affiliate body of the United Nations (UN), to “initiate a procedure involving the investigation of the case of Mr. Wine together with his wife and his domestic staff”.
Aside from demanding the immediate release of Mr. Wine and other detained persons, Mr. Falana also asked the group to “send an allegation letter to the Government of Uganda inquiring about the case generally” and raise specific questions “about the legal basis for Bobi Wine’s arrest, detention, and/or degrading treatment, each of which is in violation of international law”.
Ugandan officials have said the soldiers and police were there for Wine’s own security.
