Since at least 2018, Ugandan security forces have unlawfully detained and tortured many people, including government critics and opposition supporters, often in unsanctioned or unauthorized places of detention. Some of these locations, somewhat ironically termed “safehouses,” are residential buildings converted by the authorities to be used for witness protection. In fact, they operate as makeshift detention centers under the authority of the Internal Security Organization (ISO), Uganda’s domestic intelligence body.

In August 2019, the Parliament’s House Committee on Human Rights opened an investigation into allegations that ISO officials had abducted and illegally detained more than 400 people in these safehouses and on an island in Lake Victoria, south of Kampala. On February 5, 2020, the committee released its report, concluding that the authorities, including ISO and other government agencies, were torturing, and abusing detainees in unsanctioned places of detention, notably safehouses, as well as in some legal detention centers. The committee called on the government and relevant agencies to conduct further investigations, but as of the time of this report no such investigations have taken place.

Unlawful detention, torture, and abuses continued with impunity, despite Uganda’s Constitution and other domestic laws prohibiting and criminalizing such acts, despite those acts being a violation of Uganda’s binding obligations under international human rights law, and despite the committee’s report and recommendations. During the two months leading up to and after Uganda’s January 14, 2021, general elections, less than a year after the parliamentary report was released, government security forces unlawfully detained, and forcibly disappeared government critics, opposition members, and peaceful protestors. While the authorities have released some detainees, the fate and whereabouts of many others is still unknown, leaving their families to continue to search for answers.

Based on in person and telephone interviews with 51 people, including 34 former detainees and witnesses, this report documents enforced disappearances, abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, torture, and ill-treatment by the Ugandan police, army, military intelligence, and ISO officials, mostly in unsanctioned places of detention. It covers detentions by ISO in 2018, 2019, as well as arbitrary arrests and detentions by security forces around the January 2021 general elections. It explains the enduring challenges victims and their families face, before and upon release, concerning their physical, mental, and economic well-being, and the obstacles they face in obtaining justice.

Report by the Human Rights Watch