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Police fails to protect ugandans says hurinet report

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By Witnessradio.org Team

The Latest human rights report poked holes in the police force exposing its failure to handle crimes.

The report is a product of a survey in eight districts of Uganda namely; Masaka, Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Kayunga,Luweero, Jjinja and Mpigi and assesses police work for the past five years.

According to the survey, there were varied perceptions on levels of crime with 42% of the respondents indicating that crime levels increased compared to the previous ratings.

Burglary and house break-ins continue to be the most common crime committed related followed by theft, murder, arson and sexual related crimes. The increase in crime was attributed to a number of factors including; lenient sentences by courts of law, corruption in police, weak local government structures and breakdown of community social structures as well as poor community policing.

According to one of the lead researchers Patrick Tumwine, the last five years have witnessed an increase in police administrative units and personnel in communities across the eight districts covered by the survey.

However, rural-based districts such as Masaka, Kayunga, Luwero reported more self–initiated contacts with police than Kampala, Mukono, Jinja and Wakiso.

Tumwine says that in many areas they went to especially in the rural districts, the state of police stations was wanting in all aspects and falls short of the established international standards. 68% of the respondents considered police stations in their districts inadequate, detached from communities they serve, have dilapidated structures and at the same time police detention facilities do not meet the required minimum standards.

On Democratic policing, respondents were dissatisfied with the level at which Uganda Police was moving towards meeting tenets of democratic policing. This was attributed to the low levels of responsiveness to community concerns, increased militarization of UPF, lack of neutrality, abuse of human rights, lack of accountability by officers who commit human rights violations, poor handling of investigations and case files as well as existence of draconian laws that police has persistently applied selectively.

Reacting to the released report, DP president Norbert Mao attributed police’s failure to do be democratic to orders from higher authorities. He says many trained police officers do know the law and endeavor to be professional but are ever diverted by impromptu order from the top leaders.

“The problem here is above…this above can reset the system, oh he even reboots when he deems it fit”. Mao said. He also proposed that for things to change, there is need to also improve the living standards of the officers including disbanding police barracks to allow them live among the community and also form a police retention fund to deal away with the corruption as the officers strive to make ends meet.

Butambala MP who is also shadow internal affairs minister, Muwanga Kivumbi said that the major problem has been prioritization with much of the money going into dispersing meetings by the opposition and ignoring the actual police work.

“Currently Shs 22 bn have been budgeted to be spent only on quelling 22 riots according to the police budget 2017-2018 yet only Shs 7 bn goes into investigations…that’s why cases are not thoroughly investigated”. Muwanga observed.

Responding to the findings in the report, Deputy inspector general of police, Edward Ochom said the police had some shortcomings but had made tremendous improvements in handling crime.

Key note speaker at the dialogue to discuss the report, David Pulkol said that the root-cause of all problems is the tag on police force verses service. He says the police force is like a tree whose roots, branches and all sectors matter.“When I was the director general of internal security, I got the same problem, calls that would divert from the system…the interference in police’s work is evident…bringing military into the police is militarization of the force which is

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Business, UN, Govt & Civil Society urge EU to protect sustainability due diligence framework

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As the publishing date for the European Commission’s Omnibus Simplification Package proposal draws closer, a coalition of major business associations representing over 6000 members, including Amfori and the Fair Labor Association, has called on the EU to uphold the integrity of the EU sustainability due diligence framework.

Governments have also joined the conversation, with the Spanish government voicing its strong support for maintaining the core principles of the CSRD and CSDDD.

Their call emphasises the importance of preserving the integrity of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

These powerful business voices have been complemented by statements from the UN Working Group on Business & Human Rights, alongside 75 organisations from the Global South and 25 legal academics, all cautioning the EU against reopening the legal text of the CSDDD.

Additionally, the Global Reporting Initiative has urged the EU to maintain the double materiality principle of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, meanwhile advisory firm Human Level published a briefing exploring the business risks of reopening level 1 of the text.

Concerns stem from fears that reopening negotiations could weaken key human rights and environmental due diligence provisions, undermine corporate accountability and create legal uncertainty for businesses.

The European Commission’s Omnibus proposal is expected to be published on 26 February.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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Kenya: Court halts flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix and British Airways over unlawfully acquiring community land without consent

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“Landmark Court Ruling Delivers Devastating Blow To Flagship Carbon Offset Project”, Friday, 31 January 2025.

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law.

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies. One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations. The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem.

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal…

The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation.

The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.” The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.

These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there. The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas. The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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France: CSOs criticise French government’s call for “massive regulatory pause” on EU legislation, incl. CSRD and CSDDD

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“Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive : France advocates for indefinite postponement, to the detriment of social and environemental justice,” 24 January 2025

According to a document made public by Politico and Mediapart, the French government, via the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard, intends to bring to Brussels an agenda of all-out deregulation which, in addition to suspending the application of the text “sine die”, would call into question entire sections of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This irresponsible position risks precipitating the unravelling of a text necessary in the face of the climate and social crisis, a text that France nevertheless declares to have supported.

[…] The instrumentalization of the simplification of the law to weaken a directive is dangerous and unacceptable for European democracy.

According to the document published this morning in the press, France would request an indefinite postponement of the application of this directive, a significant increase in the application thresholds, or even the removal of the clause that would allow in the future to specifically regulate the activities of financial actors. These numerous modifications would lead to an exclusion of nearly 70% of the companies concerned, even though only 3,400 of the 32 million European companies (i.e. less than 0.1%) were covered under the previous thresholds according to the NGO SOMO.

In reality, as during the negotiation of the text, France is merely echoing the demands made by several employers’ organisations hostile to the duty of vigilance, including AFEP and Business Europe. In doing so, France is actively contributing to undoing the progress achieved by citizens in recent years.

For our organisations, human rights and environmental associations and trade unions, the position expressed by France is irresponsible and incomprehensible. Last week, more than 160 European associations and trade unions repeated their opposition to a questioning of European Sustainable Finance legislations.

We call on the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou Government to reconsider this position as soon as possible and to reiterate France’s support for the European duty of vigilance, for the other texts of the Green Deal which are vital for people, the climate and biodiversity, and for respecting their implementation timelines.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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