After 26 years of President Yoweri Museveni's rule, increasing threats to freedom of expression, assembly, and association raise serious concerns about Uganda's respect for the rule of law. The security forces continue to enjoy impunity for torture, extrajudicial killings, and the deaths of at least 49 people during protests in 2009 and 2011.

The government banned a political pressure group calling for peaceful change, stopped opposition groups from holding rallies, and harassed and intimidated journalists and civil society activists in 2012. Organizations monitoring governance, accountability of public resources, land rights, oil revenue, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face increased obstructions. The notorious draft Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposes the death penalty for some consensual same-sex activities, remains tabled in parliament, threatening the rights of Uganda's LGBT people.

After an eight-year civil society campaign supporting the bill, parliament unanimously passed a law defining and criminalizing torture that the president signed, bringing it into force in July.

Freedom of Assembly and Expression

Police interference in, and unlawful obstruction of, public gatherings remains a significant problem, often accompanied by arrests and detentions of organizers and participants. In March, police stopped opposition leaders from touring a public works project in Kampala, the capital. In the resulting melee, a policeman, John Bosco Ariong, was hit by an object and died. Police closed off the area, arrested over 50 people, and beat them in detention. One person was charged with Ariong's murder and is awaiting trial. The mayor of Kampala and an opposition leader were charged with organizing an unlawful assembly with the purpose of inciting members of the public against the police.

In April, the attorney general banned the political pressure group Activists for Change, which orchestrated the April 2011 “Walk to Work” protests, labeling the group an unlawful society under the penal code. The ban came a day before a planned rally to call attention to police abuse of opposition supporters. Police placed opposition leader Kizza Besigye under house arrest without a court order in April during the international assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Kampala, arguing that he would disrupt the meeting.