Olivia Solon reports:
Nick Opiyo had just ordered lunch in a Kampala restaurant on the last working day before Christmas when armed, uniformed security forces swarmed his table, handcuffed him, covered his head with a sack he says smelled of blood, and bundled him into an unmarked van. His laptop, phone, documents and car keys were confiscated and he was interrogated for several days, accused of money laundering, not paying taxes or filing returns — allegations he denies. The 43-year-old spent his holiday behind bars, and the government dropped the charges nine months later.
Opiyo, one of Uganda’s top human rights lawyers, believes that there was an ulterior motive for his December 2020 detention: he and his team at the legal nonprofit Chapter Four had been gathering evidence linking state security forces to extrajudicial killings in the run-up to the 2021 general election.
Read more at Bloomberg.