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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Breaking: Court dismisses a criminal case against a community land rights defender for want of prosecution.

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By Witness Radio Team.

Kiryandongo. A criminal trespass case against a community land rights defender has been dismissed over the prosecution’s failure to adduce evidence before the Chief Magistrate Court that pinned the community defender on the alleged charges.

On 27th October 2021, Kiryandongo Chief Magistrate Court charged Otyaluk David with criminal trespass and remanded him to Masindi prison. He was later granted court bail and since then, he has been traveling 48 kilometers to and from court every fortnight.

Before he was presented before a court, Otyaluk was kidnapped and illegally detained in Kiryandongo Central Police Station (CPS) cells for five (5) days for trespassing on a piece of land he (Otyaluk) had lived and cultivated since he was born.

In the afternoon of 21st October, two (2) armed men cladding Uganda People Defense Forces (UPDF) uniform and police personnel raided Otyaluk’s home and got him kidnapped to an unknown destination. UPDF soldiers guard Kiryandongo Sugar Limited plantations.

“On the day of his kidnap, Otyaluk was found praying in his house. In a blink of an eye, the defender was rounded up and bundled onto a vehicle owned by Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, forcefully evicting us off our land. We later learned that he was taken into evictor’s facilities where he was kept for some time before being transferred to Kiryandongo CPS” A family member remembers.

A family member further added that before the kidnap, Otyaluk’s family had lost about 12 acres of land to Kiryandongo Sugar Limited.

“Company workers under the protection of soldiers brought a tractor and plowed acres of semi-mature maize, beans, sorghum, and sim-sim. We were only left with a small piece of land where our house sits and we are currently trapped in the middle of a sugarcane plantation” a family member added.

Since the trial period was announced, the prosecution failed to bring witnesses to pin Otyaluk for trespassing on his land. It was only on the 19th of July, 2022 during a court session, one Adamuru Peter, allegedly to be a company manager turned up as a company representative but not as a witness.

In her ruling last week, a magistrate at Kiryandongo Magistrate court discontinued the trial of Otyaluk and dismissed the case.

Otyaluk is one of the luckiest among hundreds of community land and environmental rights defenders currently under persecution to have his case dismissed. It’s an order of the day for the community land and environmental rights defenders to be kidnapped, arbitrarily arrested, and tortured on orders of investors for their work of mobilizing the communities to desist land grabs.

Kiryandongo Sugar Limited is among multinationals forcefully evicting over 35000 local and indigenous people off their land to give way to large-scale agribusinesses.

Kiryandongo Sugar Limited is one of the many companies owned by the Rai Group of Mauritius. The dynasty owns several other companies in DR Congo, Kenya and Malawi, and Uganda. A dynasty owns companies such as West Kenya Sugar (which owns Kabras Sugar), Timsales Limited, Menengai Oil Refineries, Rai Ply, and Webuye Panpaper.

In Uganda, the Rai Group of Mauritius owns Nile Ply limited, Kinyara Sugar Limited, and Masindi Sugar Limited among others. One of its directors is a shareholder of a British Virgin Islands company, listed in the Panama Papers database recently.

The same company has fraudulently gotten a license to replace part of Bungoma natural forest with a sugarcane plantation.

“Court has shown today that the company is maliciously arresting us to keep us in jails. To weaken our hearts, wasting our time and resources. They intentionally do this because we refused to surrender the land we have lived on for years. It is shaming that the government has failed to protect the rights of the poor people.” The defender noticed.

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

A land rights defender and his wife have been arrested, charged, and sent to prison.

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By Witness Radio team.

Kiryandongo District – A community land rights Defender at Nyamutende Cell in Kiryandongo District, and his wife have been sent to prison by a magistrate’s court in Kiryandongo District, Witness Radio confirms.

Olupot James and his wife, Apio Sarah, were charged with malicious damage to property after a multinational company, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, accused them of destroying its crops. The area police later picked them up.

Since 2017, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, a subsidiary of Rai Holdings Private Limited, has been among the three multinationals that have forcibly displaced over thirty-five thousand (35,000) people in Kiryandongo District without following due diligence or offering alternative settlement options.

Community land Rights defender Olupot James and his wife Apio Sarah are amongst a few remaining families that resisted the company’s violent eviction and repression. Their home is currently trapped in the middle of the sugar plantation after they lost their land, which was dug up to the house by the multinational. Despite their peaceful resistance, Olupot has been arrested, charged, and imprisoned more than six times, a clear indication of the injustice they are facing.

Since late May this year, the duo has been reporting to Kiryandongo police station on Criminal Case Number CRB No. 316/2025, until they were arrested and aligned before the court and imprisoned. Olupot was remanded to Dyang while Apio is in Kiryandongo prison.

The state alleges that Olupot and Apio committed the offence of malicious damage to property in Kikungulu village, Kiryandongo District, a region with a complex history of land-related conflicts.

The Witness Radio’s legal aid team is monitoring the case and will appear in court to apply for their bail.

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Crackdown on EACOP protesters intensifies: 35 Activists arrested in just four months.

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By Witness Radio team.

Ugandan authorities’ ongoing crackdown on anti-EACOP protest marches is spreading rapidly like wildfires. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) Project, a significant oil infrastructure development, has been a point of contention. Recently, Witness Radio warned that criminalizing the activities of individual activists and environmental defenders opposed to this project, which aims to transport crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania, will be regarded as the most disastrous and insensitive to communities’ concerns in Uganda’s history.

In just four months, a series of arrests targeting environmental activists opposing the mega oil project that transports crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania has resulted in a scene of crime. No one is allowed to express their concerns peacefully about it and push back on its adverse negative impacts.

While activists view the peaceful marches as a rightful and brave effort to protect the environment and the communities affected by the project, the authorities, including the Uganda police and Prosecutor’s office, regard these actions as attempts to sabotage development projects and resort to criminalization.

Activists and civil society organizations’ reports indicate that the project will likely damage the environment and has displaced thousands of local communities in Uganda and Tanzania.

Despite growing concerns and an intensified crackdown, project financiers and shareholders remain unwavering in supporting the EACOP project. This steadfast support underscores the urgency of the situation. However, environmental and human rights defenders stand firm, resolutely demanding the project’s halt, showing a glimmer of hope in this challenging situation.

Over last weekend, eleven (11) environmental activists were arrested, charged, and sent to prison. They were arrested and detained by police at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) premises while attempting to deliver a petition urging the bank to halt its financial support for the 1,444-kilometer heated pipeline project.

The arrest of the eleven activists comes less than a month after nine activists were detained on April 02 outside the Stanbic Bank headquarters while attempting to deliver a petition urging the bank to halt its funding for the project.

The eleven include Bob Barigye, Augustine Tukamashaba, Gilbert Ayebare, Umar Kasimbe, Joseph Ssengozi, Keith Namanya, Raymond Bituhanga, Mohammed Ssentongo, Paul Ssekate, Misach Saazi and Phionah Nalusiba.

KCB Bank Uganda is one of the banks that recently joined the race to fund the EACOP project. Last month, On March 26, 2025, EACOP Ltd., the company in charge of the construction and future operation of the EACOP project, announced that it had acquired additional financing provided by a syndicate of financial institutions, including regional banks such as KCB Bank.

Other banks in the syndicate include the Stanbic Bank Uganda, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited, and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD).

The activists appeared before the Nakawa Chief Magistrate Court on April 25. They were charged with criminal trespass. According to section 302 of the Penal Code, a person convicted of criminal trespass is liable to a maximum sentence of one year in prison. This detail underscores the weight of the situation.

The activists are currently on remand at Luzira Maximum Prison and are expected to appear again before the court on May 08, 2025, for mention.

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Witness Radio Petitions ODPP urgently to review and withdraw criminal charges against Buvuma Community Land Defenders.

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By Witness Radio team.

As Ugandan courts increasingly become tools of oppression, Witness Radio is deeply concerned about the growing trend of weaponizing the justice systems against communities, land, and environmental defenders who resist land grabbing and other harmful land-based investments.

In a well-calculated tactic, land grabbers and investors continue to collude with security agencies, particularly the police, to arrest violently and courts of law to maliciously prosecute hundreds of these defenders for either fighting back against the land-grabbing schemes or criticizing harmful land-based investments in Uganda.

This trend of persecution is not isolated to Buvuma but is a continuous threat in many other parts of Uganda. Buvuma, in particular, is a hotbed of injustice, where the government of Uganda, in collaboration with BIDCO, is implementing the National Oil Palm Project (NOPP) to expand palm oil growing in Uganda.

In our article dated March 5th this year, Witness Radio revealed how community land defenders in Buvuma continued to face judicial harassment on trumped charges simply for defending their land from being grabbed for palm oil plantations.

The accused defenders are residents of the Magyo and Bukula villages in the Buvuma district.

More than a dozen smallholder farmers in these villages situated in Nairambi Sub-county are facing violent evictions from their land and unending persecution. They have been framed with criminal charges for refusing to give away their land for palm oil growing.

The victims are legal owners of bibanja duly registered by Buganda Land Board and recognized as tenants by Buganda Land Board.

Buvuma College school is claiming ownership of the land, while Buvuma district officials, under the guise of protecting Kirigye Forest Reserve, also claim the same land on which these individuals have settled lawfully for decades.

Several community members have been arrested and charged with false criminal offenses.

Among them include community land rights defender Ssentongo, who is currently battling with cases CRB:301/2023, accused of illegally occupying Kirigye forest land (offense of carrying out prohibited activities in forest reserve).

CRB 232/2024 with complainant Kabale Denis (District Forest Officer) charged with carrying out prohibited activities in the forest reserve and CRB 098/2023 on criminal trespass with Buvuma College administration, the complainant.

Others facing persecution are Steven Kyeswa, Kisekwa Richard, and Kibondwe Chrysostom on CRB 141/2024 with assault occasioning actual bodily harm vide Criminal Case No 075 of 2024, among other cases.

As part of efforts to end the ongoing oppression of community defenders in Buvuma, Witness Radio has petitioned the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to urgently intervene, review, and withdraw the charges unjustly brought against these defenders.

According to the petition dated March 7th, 2025, the sole intention of these charges is to grab community land without any merits as criminal charges. Sarah Adong, one of the staff attorneys and Head of Witness Radio Legal Aid, reveals that the matters against the accused persons before the court point to the question of land ownership, which can only be answered through civil suits and not criminal charges. It is an apparent injustice.

“Upon thoroughly examining the facts, evidence, and circumstances surrounding these charges, it is evident that they have no merit whatsoever. They amount to vexatious and frivolous prosecution that serves no genuine interest of justice,” the petition by the Land and Environmental Rights Watchdog mentioned.

In an unusual turn of events, the Witness Radio Legal Aid team observed that some of the defenders, including Sentongo, have been charged with criminal trespass twice by the same complainant vide CC No 325 of 2020 and are now facing the same charge by the same party vide CC No 062/2023. This repeated persecution is a heavy burden on these defenders.

“The charges against our client undermine the accused person’s rights under Article 29 (9) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. It has proven that the cases brought against our clients are frivolous and vexatious as they are instituted in a manner that constitutes abuse of court processes,” the petition further read.

Therefore, the organization strongly urges the office of the DPP to exercise its prosecutorial discretion under relevant legal provisions. This is crucial for the prevalence of equity, justice, and good conscience and reaffirming the prosecution process’s integrity and objectivity.

 

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