By. Admin
Human rights defenders are calling upon parliament to fast track the human rights defenders bill to explicitly recognize the legitimate work of human rights defenders and provide them a protection mechanism.
Robert Kirenga the executive director, for the national coalition of human rights defenders Uganda (NCHRD) says, its been long since the bill was tabled in parliament but little progress has been realized to the effect.
Kirenga adds that the continued absence of this Act puts lives and work of human rights defenders at risk since they operate with little or no protection.
The rights defenders are now calling on parliament to pass the bill into law before the country ushers the anticipated hot political season.
Meanwhile, women human rights defenders are also decrying the increase in domestic violence matted against them coupled with the shift to digital and virtual work which has crippled their work to the public.
In 2019, the coalition received over 1000 cases of human rights defenders’ lives under threat across the country including those involving office break-in.
Now the national coalition of human rights defender Uganda wants a police report on the investigation on a series of office break ins of different NGO across the country.
Robert Kirenga adds that a number of CSO offices were broken into and cases were reported but up to now there is no conclusive information police has given them.
They have demanded that police brings out the report immediately and bring the identified culprits who were involved in the break-ins to book.
Since 2016, when the country registered the first CSO office break-in till now no conclusive report has been produced by police despite all avenues by CSOs to have the report released.
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