Lawyer Mugisha Kafureek
Lawyer Mugisha Kafureeka, a PhD candidate, was detained as he was leaving Makerere University on April 19, 2002, where he was a lecturer in an evening class. He was taken by the police, accompanied by fifteen other vehicles full of CMI and ISO agents and members of the police CID, to his residence, which was searched without a warrant and without his permission. They proceeded to the home of relatives and detained his young cousins found there.Although officially held at the central police station in Kampala, he was taken out on a daily basis to the headquarters of CMI to be questioned all day about his alleged activities with the Reform Agenda and with rebels believed to be associated with them. He denied everything. On the second day of his interrogation he was whipped with a long cable (rubber outside, wire inside), which the CMI officials said was âimported from South Africa for torture.â46 They ordered him to tell the truth, not satisfied with his denials of ârebelâ involvement. They hit him on the buttocks and he bled, then hit him on the bottoms of his feet, and kicked him in the back with their boots. They said, âWe have all power over you.â They said they could not write the ârubbishâ he was telling them. He was returned to the police nightly. He was similarly beaten the following days.After four days in detention his family took legal action and his friends alerted the press. He was then taken to CID to make a statement to the police, where he again denied everything. On the seventh day of captivity, he was taken to the Magistratesâ Court and charged with treason and misprision of treason (failing to inform officials of anyoneâs intent to commit treason, or failing to try to prevent treason). From there he was taken to Kigo Prison. CMI officials had told him, âWe have the capacity to keep you in prison for a minimum of one year, your life will never be the same, the state cannot take chances.â Every two weeks he was brought back to the Magistratesâ Court, where the prosecutor said, each time, âthe investigation is still continuing,â and the magistrate granted the request for another two-week postponement.He was kept in Kigo Prison for a year on this basis. On the day he was released on bail in May 2003, he was rearrested outside the court building by CMI for further questioning, then released a few days later after being kept in a garage (with several other beaten prisoners) at JATF. They were released togetherâafter an admonishment by the head of JAFT and after CMI warned him not to try to take revenge.47The government denies that he was tortured and maintains that he was a ârecruiting coordinator for PRA.â48Although this man took his examination and was awarded his PhD, and was not convicted of anything, he found that a number of potential employers were too fearful to hire him in any position
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
