Five opposition party officials have been remanded to Luzira Prison over charges of holding an illegal society after the police foiled an anti-Electoral Commission protest in Kampala. Buganda Road Court remanded the personal assistant of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president, Mr Sam Mugumya and FDC deputy electoral commission chairman, Michael Kabaziguruka. Others are; Bob Kiryamuwezi, Aggrey Kiconco and Yasiin Kalemba.
The officials were arrested after they attempted to storm the Electoral Commission offices on Jinja Road on Tuesday, Kampala to demand for the resignation of its head, Eng. Badru Kiggundu and other seven commissioners.
The officials, most of them from the Inter-Party Cooperation, a loose coalition of the opposition, had planned to march the EC offices to deliver a petition in which they accuse Eng. Kiggundu and his commissioners of incompetence. Prosecution alleges that the group on Wednesday at City House in Kampala unlawfully moved along Kampala-Jinja Road thus causing unlawful society.
In anticipation of a possible chaos, the police sealed off Jinja Road with four vehicles of anti-riot police, blocking the youth from marching through the street. The youth then retreated to Dewinton Road from where five of them were arrested and taken to the Central Police Station.
Top IPC leadership last week resolved to stage nationwide protests against the electoral commissioners who were reappointed by President Museveni last year despite widespread irregularities in the 2006 election which they oversaw.
FDC lawyer Yusuf Nsibambi described the charges against the youth as “worthless”. “Who determines what is a lawful and an unlawful assembly?” Mr Nsibambi asked. “This is a law which stops people from participating in politics
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