Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua has protested over the abduction of Uganda opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who had travelled from Kampala to Nairobi to attend the launch of her autobiography, Against The Tide.
The book was launched on Sunday, November 17, and Dr Besigye was among those scheduled to speak at the event held at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi. However, he was abducted hours before the event kicked off.
“This occurrence is deeply disturbing and of grave concern,” said Ms Karua in a statement she posted on X.
According to Dr Besigye’s, Dr Winnie Byanyima, Dr Besigye was kidnapped on Saturday, a day before the book launch.
“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” she said on X. “We his family and his lawyers demand to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in military jail?”
In her statement, Ms Karua said that Dr Besigye had checked in at the Waridi Paradise Hotel and Suites at the weekend. Quoting family sources, she said that Dr Besigye then left for a meeting in the Riverside area, an upmarket neighbourhood, and his family had not seen him or heard from him after that.
According to her, the taxi driver who had dropped Dr Besigye to venue of the meeting left after waiting from 4pm to 4am. All that time, his attempts to reach the politician, who has vied unsuccessfully against Uganda president Yoweri Museveni in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016, were futile.
“We suspect that Dr Besigye may have been abducted after he was dropped at the Riverside apartments, most likely by Ugandan authorities working in cahoots with and facilitation from Kenyan authorities,” Ms Karua said.
According to her, in July another 36 Ugandans were similarly abducted and spirited back to Kampala, where they were detained and tortured. The 36 had attended a leadership workshop in Kisumu when they were seized.
Cases of abductions, disappearances and irregular arrests of politicians and activists have been on the increase in Kenya and Tanzania and now Uganda.
“Is Nairobi becoming the Beirut of Africa? Turks, Besigye… who next?” asked lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi after news of the abduction broke.
According to the Daily Monitor, a leading daily newspaper in Uganda, and which broke the story of the abduction of the opposition politician, it was not clear who Dr Besigye had gone to meet when he was abducted.
The case came just days ahead of today’s release of the latest human rights report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
According to the KNCHR report for the period between July 2023 and 2024, there were a total of 74 incidences of abductions and enforced disappearances in Kenya between November 2023 and November 2024.
“The commission regrets the resurgence of cases of abductions and enforced disappearances allegedly committed by members of the National Police Service and National Intelligence Service,” says the report titled State of Human Rights in Kenya.
According to the report, majority of the disappearances were related to the anti-Finance Bill 2024 protests by Gen Z.
“To date, 26 persons are still missing. The Commission remains concerned that despite an abundance of evidence captured on the abductions including vehicle number plates, video and photographs, the National Police Service has not made any formal statement on these abduction incidences and no prosecutions have been undertaken thus far,” it says.
Article 29 of the Constitution gives an assurance of every person’s right not to be subjected to any form of violence from either public or private sources or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
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