Uganda's online critics describe abductions and threats months after disputed election

Ugandan activists, a journalist and the father of a missing teenager have described being abducted, assaulted or threatened by security forces for criticizing President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, in an Al Jazeera investigation published Wednesday. The accounts add individual detail to a pattern that United Nations human rights officials and Human Rights Watch have documented since Museveni's re-election to a seventh term in January.

None of the allegations of abduction has been independently verified by a court, and Uganda's military disputes that any unlawful detentions have taken place. But the new testimony, combined with months of monitoring by the UN and rights groups, describes a consistent method: plainclothes or uniformed men seizing critics off the street, holding them incommunicado at undisclosed locations, and in several cases pressuring them to stop posting online before releasing them on bail or bond.

Three cases, one pattern

Among those profiled is Praise Aloikin Opoloje, a human rights lawyer and activist who says she was lured to a Kampala police station over a false accusation of carpet theft on September 26, then forced into a van and threatened with torture and rape. She was detained days after posting a video saying she was not afraid of Kainerugaba, who commands Uganda's armed forces. She appeared before the Buganda Road Chief Magistrate's Court on September 28 and denied a charge of unlawfully using a SIM card registered to her mother, brought under Uganda's 2024 interception-of-communications regulations. She was granted bail on October 14 and barred from traveling abroad without court permission. She has a three-year-old daughter.

Journalist and activist Andrew Tabandama Natumanya, known as Ninye Tabz, says he was lured to a car wash and forced into a van on June 17, assaulted, photographed naked and warned to stop posting after he gave real-time updates on social media about a security raid on properties linked to a former parliament speaker. He was held five days before being released on police bond; he says his family has since faced threats to their businesses and jobs. "I will not delete my posts," he told Al Jazeera, saying he would keep reporting facts even if he changes his methods.

A third case has no resolution. Emmanuel Baliza, 59, says armed men in uniform took his 17-year-old son, William, in February after the teenager said he intended to protest police brutality and failings in the education system. The men told Baliza they were taking William to the Special Investigations Unit but gave no reference number, he said. Officials have denied holding the teenager; Baliza says he has since heard his son may be held at a military facility in Kasenyi, near Entebbe. He has had no confirmed contact with him in nine months.

The numbers behind the pattern

The individual accounts sit inside a broader, documented pattern. The UN's human rights office said in a July 30 press release that at least 50 opposition leaders and supporters, five journalists and five human rights advocates had faced violations including arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance and torture since the January election, and that 10 civil society organizations had been forcibly suspended. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was "appalled that the authorities are increasingly targeting any form of dissent," adding that "those who dare to speak out are silenced" in what he called a climate of fear that is pushing Ugandans toward self-censorship.

Human Rights Watch reported in July that at least five critics of Museveni and Kainerugaba had been seized by soldiers since mid-June, including Erias Lukwago, a lawyer for jailed opposition figure Kizza Besigye; former government minister Miria Matembe; journalist Timothy Kalyegira; and National Unity Platform deputy president Muwanga Kivumbi. A Kenyan lawyer representing Besigye, Martha Karua, was separately detained at Entebbe airport and deported in June.

A Kampala lawyer, Steven Atukwatse of the Agora Research Center, told Al Jazeera he has handled 12 cases since November 2025 of social media users charged under Uganda's Computer Misuse Act, most of them TikTok and X users criticizing Museveni or Kainerugaba. He said families often cannot learn where relatives are being held, and that charges sometimes linger unresolved long after a detainee's release.

Background: an election that didn't end the pressure

Museveni, in power since 1986, won a seventh term on January 15 with 71.65 percent of the vote, according to the official count announced by the Electoral Commission; his main challenger, musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, took 24.72 percent and rejected the result as fraudulent. At least seven people were killed in post-election violence. Uganda's own Human Rights Commission, in a preliminary statement issued three days after the vote, called the election "largely peaceful" while still flagging widespread failures of biometric voter verification and a government-ordered internet shutdown that Uganda's telecom regulator said it restored on January 18.

In March, Uganda's Constitutional Court struck down several provisions of the Computer Misuse Act — the law most often used to charge online critics — after finding Parliament had passed them without following its own procedural rules. The government subsequently told the public broadcaster that it would not appeal and would instead send the law back to Parliament for reworking, according to Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. Critics say prosecutors have since turned to other statutes, including interception-of-communications and data-protection regulations, to bring similar charges — as in Opoloje's case. A separate law signed in May, the Protection of Sovereignty Act, restricts foreign funding to Ugandan civil-society groups, which Human Rights Watch has warned could further narrow the space for independent monitoring.

Government response

Uganda's military disputes the characterization of these incidents as abductions. Army spokesperson Col. Chris Magezi told Al Jazeera that allegations should be backed by evidence, that the military operates within the law, and that he rejects claims of unlawful disappearances. He said suspects are brought before courts and that security agencies do monitor social media activity. Ugandan officials have previously dismissed similar claims from opposition and civil-society figures as fabricated or exaggerated.

"I am appalled that the authorities are increasingly targeting any form of dissent. Those who dare to speak out are silenced." — Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

What's next

None of the three cases detailed Wednesday has reached a final court outcome. Opoloje and Natumanya remain on bail and bond, respectively, facing charges that have not been withdrawn; the Uganda Law Society has called for prosecutors to drop the case against Opoloje, arguing the charge sheet does not specify any unlawful purpose for the SIM card use at issue. William Baliza remains unaccounted for, with his father continuing to press officials for information. Rights groups say they expect further prosecutions of online critics under Uganda's remaining computer-misuse and interception statutes while Parliament reworks the nullified provisions, and the UN human rights office has said it will continue monitoring the pattern of detentions into next year.