HRF is concerned about the health of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye since his July 30 hospitalization after his collapse in court during his treason trial. HRF joins international appeals for Besigye’s release and for his rights to a fair trial to be respected. HRF condemns dictator Yoweri Museveni’s regime’s dragging of Besigye before kangaroo courts for more than 20 months while harassing, obstructing, and intimidating his team of lawyers.
On July 30, Besigye collapsed in the dock at the High Court in Kampala after Justice Emmanuel Baguma ordered his trial to proceed with three state-appointed lawyers over his objections. Witnesses said he shouted “Stop, stop, stop” for several minutes before losing consciousness, and cried out that he was being injured. His sister, a medical doctor, was in court but was not permitted to attend to him. He was taken first to a military hospital, then transferred under heavy security to Mulago National Referral Hospital, where the ICU wing is guarded by armed officers. On August 4, the High Court suspended proceedings of the case pending a medical evaluation of Besigye’s fitness for trial.
The collapse followed months of systematic obstruction of Besigye’s right to counsel. His lead lawyer Erias Lukwago was seized by the army last month and charged with failing to report acts of treason. His other lead counsel, senior Kenyan attorney Martha Karua, was barred from entering Uganda when she flew in to represent him. With his chosen lawyers removed, the court imposed state-funded advocates over his objections. The Uganda Law Society has called on the judiciary to suspend what it described as procedural irregularities, noting that Article 28 of the constitution guarantees the right to counsel of one’s own choosing, and that pending applications including one seeking a stay of proceedings should have been resolved first.
Besigye was abducted in Kenya in November 2024 and forcibly returned to Uganda, where he and his aide Obeid Lutale were charged with treason. Both deny the charges. He has been hospitalized repeatedly during his detention, including in February 2025 after a hunger strike over his continued imprisonment. Earlier this month, Museveni publicly dismissed the presumption of innocence as a foreign colonial concept, defended the denial of bail to jailed opponents, and blamed Besigye himself for the delays in his own trial. A 70-year-old man is now unconscious in a guarded intensive care unit because a regime in power since 1986 cannot tolerate the man who challenged it four times at the ballot box.
