By the Witness Radio team
The Law Development Centre (LDC) Magistrate’s Court has charged and remanded six youth activists attached to the Rooted in Resistance movement to Luzira Prison over alleged unlawful assembly.
The six are Mukiibi Isaac, Mawanda Arafat, Mugerwa Nicholas, Opio Innocent, Friday John and Onyango Ronald.
They are among 16 activists arrested on Monday, September 1, 2026, as they attempted to deliver petitions to Parliament and the offices of TotalEnergies in Kampala, calling for greater scrutiny of Uganda’s oil developments and opposing further investment in fossil fuels.
The activists were protesting against projects including the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the Tilenga oil project, arguing that continued investment in fossil fuels threatens communities, the environment and Uganda’s climate commitments.
Their lawyer, Kakuru Tumusiime, said that the six had been detained for more than 48 hours before being brought before a magistrate.
He argued that the continued detention amounted to a violation of their constitutional rights and called on the government to listen to the concerns being raised by young people rather than responding to protests with arrests.
“Our Constitution is clear that if a person has been arrested, he should be presented before court within 48 hours after his detention or else he should be granted a police bond,” Kakuru said.
He further accused the authorities of violating the activists’ human rights and said the defense team had already taken steps to challenge the alleged violations.
“We had filed an application for mandatory bail that had not been fixed. I think when they heard about the application, they rushed to bring them before court,” Kakuru said.
The six were subsequently remanded to Luzira Prison until September 17, 2026.
According to Section 62 of the Penal Code, any person who takes part in an unlawful assembly commits a misdemeanor and is liable, on conviction, to imprisonment for a term of one year.
The activists say their opposition is rooted in concerns about the environmental and social consequences of Uganda’s decision to develop its oil resources.
At the center of their campaign is EACOP, the planned 1,443-kilometre heated crude oil pipeline that will transport crude from Uganda’s oil fields in Hoima to the port of Tanga in Tanzania.
The pipeline is expected to transport crude produced from Uganda’s upstream oil projects, including the Tilenga project operated by TotalEnergies and the Kingfisher project.
The activists argue that Uganda should be investing more heavily in renewable energy rather than expanding fossil fuel production at a time when countries around the world are under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Their position is that economic development should not come at the expense of people’s land, livelihoods and the environment.
Their demonstrations and petitions have called for Uganda to reconsider continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure and instead accelerate the transition towards renewable sources of energy.
Rooted in Resistance was formerly known as Students Against EACOP and has become one of the youth-led groups consistently challenging Uganda’s fossil fuel development.
The group says young people have a stake in decisions being made today because they will live with the environmental and economic consequences of those decisions for decades to come.
During Monday’s demonstration, the activists wore orange T-shirts bearing the words “Rooted in Resistance” and carried banners and placards with messages including “No to Oil,” “Oil is temporary, nature is permanent” and “Uganda deserves an oil-free future.”
The demonstration ended with arrests as the activists attempted to deliver their petitions.
On Tuesday, September 1, ten of the activists were charged before Buganda Road Court with public nuisance and remanded to Luzira Prison.
The latest court proceedings involving the six activists have added another chapter to the increasingly tense debate over Uganda’s oil industry, which has led to the criminalization of more than 100 activists.
