Campus Bee has exclusively learnt that Were Salim, a 4th year student of Makerere University who was arrested on Monday this week carrying a mattress to Parliament in demonstration against the proposed age limit amendment, is presently being driven from Kampala Central Police Station to his home district in Busia where he will be put under indefinite house arrest.
Popularly known as “Papa” by his hall-mates at MAK’s Nsibirwa Hall where he has been staying, the student who had already spent more than the legally permissible 48 hours in Police custody has posted on his Facebook page this afternoon informing the public of this worrying development.
It is unclear under what charges Papa is being held by the Police, seeing that National Objective II (i) of the 1995 Constitution guarantees the active participation of all citizens in all levels of political governance, while Art. 29(d) of the same Constitution recognizes a citizen’s right to demonstrate peacefully and unarmed, whether alone or together with other persons.
Uganda Police has recently come under heavy criticism for holding opposition political activists under house arrest, ostensibly as “a preventative measure”. The legality of this practice is contested in light of Art. 29(2)(a) and other provisions of the Constitution that recognize the right of citizens, regardless of their political affiliation or opinion, to move freely throughout Uganda and reside in any part of it. The law requires that any restriction to that right by any person, authority or government agency must be acceptable and demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society. Otherwise, it would amount to an unlawful violation of the affected person’s right to liberty, among other rights.
Campus Bee understands that Papa’s transfer to Busia comes at a time when his coursemates are in the middle of tests and other academic assessments set by his faculty that will determine their eligibility to progress to final year or be maintained as students in the course. It is unclear whether the Police will permit Papa to attend to these mandatory academic assessments.
