Overview

Security forces used intimidatory tactics to suppress political opposition members and supporters in the context of the January elections, including arbitrary arrests, abductions, prolonged incommunicado detention, enforced disappearances and prosecutions. The rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association were severely restricted; the authorities targeted organizations working on human rights and shut down the internet for five days. The High Court lifted the house arrest of the main opposition leader. The vaccination roll-out was slow. The government ordered agribusiness companies to halt the evictions of thousands of people, and the Constitutional Court found that Indigenous peoples had been illegally evicted from their ancestral land. The president refused to assent to legislation which, if enacted, could provide greater protection for survivors of sexual violence but criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations. Uganda continued to host the largest refugee population in Africa.