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Patterns and Cases of Torture: In Uganda, government authorities frequently employ torture against government opponents, ordinary civilians accused of supporting rebel groups, as well as suspected common criminals. Members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and civilians in northern Uganda in particular have often become victims of torture and ill-treatment. Victims have been severely beaten with rifle butts, sticks, electric cables and other objects. Other methods of torture include tying the hands and feet behind the victim (kandoya), keeping detainees in pits in the ground; exposing the victim with mouth open to a water spigot, and inflicting injury to the penis and testicles. Withholding or denying necessary medical attention has resulted in more severe, even permanent, injury. Human Rights Watch and FHRI have described a pattern of torture and ill-treatment in Uganda in previous publications.1 As of March 2005, torture and ill-treatment continued in Uganda, as documented in this submission. There is a confusing array of security organs in Uganda that have detained and tortured suspects. In many cases agents carrying out the arrest wear civilian clothes with no identifying insignia. Under Ugandan law, only the police are authorized to routinely arrest and investigate crimes, and the only authorized places of detention for civilians are police and sometimes prison facilities. Among the agencies against which credible allegations of torture have been made are the following: - the Uganda Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) and its military intelligence branch, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) - Internal Security Organization (ISO) and its District Security Organizations (DISO) - Joint Anti Terrorism Task Force (JAT), a joint body of CMI, ISO and other security agencies - Violent Crime Crack Unit (VCCU), a special unit comprised of CMI, ISO, and other security agencies, replacing Operation Wembley, tasked with stopping common crime - the police and its Criminal Investigation Department (CID) The most serious abuses seem to occur when suspects are arrested and held by the army and its intelligence service, the CMI, as well as JAT and the VCCU. The regular police i.e. police with no special military or security brief have a slightly better record and do not seem to torture suspects as a matter of course. However, the regular police and other security agencies have also committed acts of torture and ill-treatment. When suspects such as political opponents or alleged rebels are held by the army, CMI, JAT or VCCU, they are often held in ungazetted or unauthorized places of detention or safe houses, where torture can and does take place without any observers. The government has repeatedly denied the existence of safe houses. In a meeting with Human Rights Watch on April 14, 2005, Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi stated that there are safe houses which are used by security services to do their intelligence work. He conceded that suspects may be interrogated in safe houses but denied that people are detained there.2 However, field research by Human Rights Watch and FHRI has found that detainees were frequently detained in safe houses for days, weeks, and months at a time. For example, civilians have been and continue to be held at an unauthorized JAT detention centre in the Kololo neighborhood of Kampala and at other safe houses. Civilians are also often held for prolonged periods in army barracks in different parts of the country, especially the north and west, although by law the army is allowed to carry out arrests only in emergency situations and should promptly transfer the suspect to police custody. On some occasions in recent years, the security agencies and CMI have transferred detainees for the night in a police station and kept them all day at a safe house where the interrogation and torture takes place. This may be an effort to create a veneer of legality. Human Rights Watch and FHRI have also found that the army, CMI, JAT and VCCU torture or ill-treat suspects frequently. As illustrated below, suspects are often detained by one of these agencies incommunicado in a safe house or barracks, and tortured or ill-treated to make a confession or to punish them for refusing to confess. Later, they are taken to a police station where they often suffer less abuse, and where the confession is taken again, sometimes in front of those who conducted the torture. Suspects are then charged by the police and produced in the Magistrates Court and judicially charged with treason or terrorism. Under the Ugandan constitution, treason and terrorism suspects can be detained for 360 days without trial and without bail. In many cases charges are dropped when the suspects are released on bail after the 360 days. In other cases, defendants seek amnesty for treason or terrorism, which requires a confession of guilt. The defendants sometimes seek amnesty because of the extreme slowness of the judicial system and the protracted time they must await trial. Human rights observers have been denied access to unofficial places of detention. While the government readily allows independent observers to visit regular prisons and police stations, it is very difficult to get access to military barracks, CMI facilities, and other ungazetted and thus illegal places of detention such as the JAT detention facility in Kololo, Kampala, where many victims claim to have been tortured. During a recent visit to Uganda, Human Rights Watch was denied access by army officials to the military barracks in Gulu and Makindye to interview detainees in private.3 Human Rights Watch was offered the opportunity to interview detainees in front of their guards, but decided not to do so as this is not conducive to an open discussion with the detainee. END |
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