Ugandan climate activists face charges after a month in maximum security jail

Ugandan climate activists face charges after a month in maximum security jail

The 11 university students could be imprisoned for a year for protesting against the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline Eleven Ugandan climate activists who were allegedly beaten and held arbitrarily in a notorious maximum security prison will appear in court on Wednesday charged with a colonial era anti-dissident offense, as reprisals continue against opponents of an internationally bankrolled oil pipeline.

If convicted, the 11 activists, all university students, face up to a year in jail. Four of them – Nicholas Lutabi, Jacob Lubega, Shafik Kalyango and Abdul Aziz Bwete – were allegedly arrested and beaten by police armed with guns, teargas and batons as they marched peacefully towards parliament in the capital city, Kampala, on 15 December.

They were targeted after becoming separated from a larger protest calling on the Uganda government to stop construction of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop), a $5bn fossil-fuel project backed by the French conglomerate TotalEnergies and a Chinese national oil company, as well as the governments of Uganda and Tanzania.

The climate activists said they were forced into an unmarked building within the parliament entrance, where the police officers repeatedly kicked, punched and beat them with heavy objects. It is the same place and same abusive treatment reported by at least two dozen anti-pipeline activists over the past two years.

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The arrests came just three weeks after seven activists from another anti-pipeline group, Students against Eacop Uganda, were arrested and detained under similar circumstances, by the same judge. They spent almost four weeks in maximum security and will also appear in court on Wednesday charged with common nuisance. If convicted, they face a custodial sentence of 12 months.

“It is not normal to detain suspects for even a day for a common nuisance charge,” said attorney Ronald Samuel Wanda, who is representing 15 pipeline protesters. “These arrests are arbitrary … Arresting those protesting peacefully demonstrates that the government of Uganda does not respect its own constitution.”

UN experts, the EU and international rights groups have documented those speaking out against the oil pipeline. In September 2022, the European parliament adopted a resolution condemning Eacop for the “wrongful imprisonment of human rights defenders, the arbitrary suspension of NGOs, arbitrary prison sentences and the eviction of hundreds of people from their land without fair and adequate compensation”.

Hanna Hindstrom, senior investigator for the international non-profit Global Witness, which has published an investigation into TotalEnergies activities in the region, said the company had a vested interest in the crackdown on defenders in Uganda and Tanzania, with a “chilling effect on communities affected by the pipeline”.

“These young people are speaking up for the survival of the planet, its communities and ecosystems, and should be heeded, not thrown in jail,” Hindstrom said.

Last year TotalEnergies told the Guardian it was unaware of “any allegations by human rights and environmental defenders of threats or retaliation made by its subsidiary, contractors or employees in Uganda or Tanzania”.