Uganda judges strike over court siege
Source: Reuters
By Tim Cocks KAMPALA, March 5 (Reuters) - Ugandan judges began a weeklong strike on Monday to protest government security forces storming the courts last week to seize opposition supporters who had been granted bail. Armed men in military uniforms surrounded the High Court on Thursday and dragged the six opposition supporters back to prison after beating their lawyer unconscious with a rifle butt, witnesses said. It was the second time security forces used the tactic in the same case. "The strike starts today," spokesman for the judiciary Elias Kisawuzi told Reuters. "We are closing business, we are not registering any new cases. Court has been suspended." He added the judges would meet on Friday to decide whether to continue the strike. The six defendants had been charged alongside opposition leader Kizza Besigye with plotting a rebellion. The judge ruled they should be granted bail, but military police forced their way into the high court to seize them. The attack followed a similar assault on a Kampala court in 2005, when paramilitaries in black T-shirts tried to re-arrest the Besigye-linked defendants after they were granted bail at a hearing earlier in the case's history. Chief Registrar Lawrence Gidudu told Reuters that suspending judicial activities would give judges time to present their demands to the government for stricter rules governing the behaviour of security forces at court. "Bringing police dogs into court buildings, placing military hardware outside the court gate, deploying men in military uniforms -- this is unacceptable and unconstitutional," he told Reuters at the court. The six men, accused of being members of the People's Redemption Army rebel group, were first arrested in 2003 after authorities said they were found with weapons in northwestern Uganda. Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda was quoted in the state-owned Sunday Vision as saying they had been re-arrested on separate murder charges. "It has nothing to do with their being re-charged," Kisawuzi said. "It is the manner in which the suspects were taken ... the repeated violation of the sanctity of the court," Kisawuzi said.
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