UGANDAN security forces arrested dozens of people today as they tried to walk to the parliament building to protest against high-level corruption.
According to the authorities, the demonstrations in the capital Kampala were unlawful.
Some protesters were roughed up while being forced into lorries as police and the military deployed heavily in various parts of the city, where small groups of demonstrators had gathered.
The protesters appear to have been inspired by events in neighbouring Kenya, where street action has recently forced President William Ruto to dismiss almost his entire cabinet amid widespread opposition to a now abandoned proposal to raise taxes.
Ugandans have been provoked by mounting allegations of corruption against parliamentary Speaker Anita Among, who has rejected calls for her resignation.
The anti-corruption campaign started with revelations online of allegedly irregular expenditure by the office of the speaker and others close to her.
Ms Among, a senior member of Uganda’s ruling party, has since been sanctioned by the United States and Britain.
She denies any wrongdoing and her supporters contend that she has been unfairly targeted in a country where corruption is rampant among officials.
But Ms Among is now the subject of an official probe into the source of her wealth, as well as charges she misused parliamentary resources.
President Yoweri Museveni said at the weekend that street protests were intolerable.
“We have defended the direction of Uganda’s revolutionary path in the past and we shall defend it even more now,” Mr Museveni said in a televised address, warning protest organisers that they were “playing with fire.”
His government has previously been accused of shielding corrupt but influential officials from criminal prosecution. After his re-election to a sixth term in 2021, the president promised to crack down on corruption.
Activists, opposition figures and others who try to stage street demonstrations face arrest under a law that requires them to notify police of their plans in advance.
