35 women arrested over anti-EC demo

Kampala

At least 33 opposition supporters – all of them women – were by last evening still under police custody after they tried to force their way into the Electoral Commission headquarters in Kampala.

The women, who belong to opposition parties under the Inter-Party Cooperation, marched to the EC office to demand for the resignation of Commission Chairman Eng. Badru Kiggundu and his fellow commissioners.
It was the first time a women’s group was mobilising against the embattled electoral commissioners who were reappointed last year despite widespread irregularities in the 2006 election which they oversaw.

Opposition pleas
The opposition has rejected the reappointment and the EC office in Kampala is heavily-guarded by the police after previous attempts by opposition youth wingers to demonstrate at the facility.
The police officers were, however, caught off-guard yesterday as the women emerged, one by one, from Centenary Park, opposite the EC office.
Clad in black T-shirts and carrying posters accusing Eng. Kiggundu and his team of seven commissioners of partisan tendencies, the women jumped a short wire fence, and sat under a tree near the EC gate.

Constitutional right?
“We have come here to express our dissatisfaction with Eng. Kiggundu and his team,” Ms Ingrid Turinawe, the chairperson of the FDC Women’s League and one of the demonstrators, said. “So, you cannot chase us from here because it is our constitutional right. We are not inciting violence but just want to articulate our grievances with EC as concerned women of Uganda.”

The women claimed that they had intended to deliver a petition to Eng. Kiggundu but Police armed with sniffer dogs, teargas and automatic rifles forcefully broke up the sit-down protest and arrested the demonstrators. The women were bundled onto police pick-up vehicles and whisked off to Jinja Road and Central Police stations.

Mr Wandera Ogalo, FDC’s secretary for legal affairs, accused Police of denying the women access to their lawyers. He said about 40 women had been arrested but IPC officials, who visited the women in police cells, saw only 35 women and that police could not reveal where the others were being held.

The Director of Police Operations, Mr Grace Turyagumanawe said yesterday that the women did not have permission to demonstrate at the EC office.
“These ladies wanted to enter EC offices yet no one was expecting visitors of this nature,” he said. “They came one-by-one, trespassed and sat in the grass. We tried to ask them kindly to leave but they refused so we deployed police women to get them away.” However, the police women deployed could not handle the demonstrating women and male officers were called in to assist in the arrest.

Besigye visits
FDC President Dr Kizza Besigye and other opposition officials visited the police stations where the detained demonstrators recounted their ordeal. “They forcefully loaded us on police vehicles like sacks of beans even when we had voluntarily accepted arrest,” a tearful Ms Turinawe said. “Some officers were undressing us and touching our thighs as they loaded us on their vehicles.”

Police said yesterday the women are likely to be charged with criminal trespass, unlawful assembly and inciting violence, even as Mr Ogalo petitioned the Law Council to investigate circumstances under which the suspects were allegedly denied access to their lawyers. A re-composition of the EC is one of several reforms that the opposition is demanding for ahead of elections next year.