Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims demands appointment of UHRC Chairperson.

By; Ben Musanje

23^rd Nov. 2020

The African Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (ACTV) has urged the Appointing Authority and President Yoweri Museveni in particular to appoint a substantive Chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) to fight for the rights of the recent riots suspects.

According police, over 800 people were arrested and detained from different police stations pending prosecutions in courts of law during and after the riots in the city of Kampala due to the arrest of the National Unity Platform (NUP) Presidential flag bearer Robert Kyagulanyi in Luuka district last week.

Addressing the media at their headquarters at Kanyanya in Kawempe division, the ACTV Chief Executive Officer Samuel Herbert Nsubuga says that they are cap tied by the law which only allows UHRC to visit, monitor and assess the situation of the suspects in detention centers.

He says a backlog of human rights violation cases include those of tortured victims are not attended too and also the report is not either launched or presented to parliament due to inexistence of a substantive chairperson of UHRC.

Nsubuga however condemns the acts of violence that occurred on 18th and 19th November saying that all security officers who tortured civilians during the protest across the country should also be apprehended.