Uganda’s Bobi Wine ‘under house arrest’
Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine says security forces have surrounded his residence and put him under house arrest before a planned campaign rally.
In a series of Twitter posts on Tuesday, the singer-turned-politician, who has been arrested several times in recent years, said police and military officers deployed overnight had barred him from leaving his house in Magere, north of the capital, Kampala.
“The military has increased deployment around my home. No one is allowed to leave or enter,” Bobi Wine said on Twitter, accusing longtime President Yoweri Museveni of placing him “under house arrest”.
Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was set to campaign on Tuesday in support of an opposition candidate running in a by-election in the central district of Kayunga, where Museveni is also expected to hold a rally.
“Our security guard and gardener have been violently arrested and beaten,” Bobi Wine said, adding that they had been “bundled” into a police vehicle outside his gate and their phones confiscated.
Bobi Wine came second in a tense January election that returned Museveni to power for a sixth term.
The vote was conducted under an internet blackout after campaigns where opposition candidates were routinely obstructed by police, and many people were shot dead by security forces.
