The Uganda Prisons Services has denied allegations of restricting rights of former Presidential Candidate, Kizza Besigye during his stay in Luzira Maximum Prison, saying there is no special treatment given to inmates because the status hold outside prison isn’t important.
The remarks were made by Samuel Akena, Deputy Commissioner General of Uganda Prisons Services, while appearing before Parliament’s Human Rights Committee while responding to the concerns raised in the 27th Annual Report on the State of Human Rights and Freedoms in Uganda in 2024.
Akena was responding to complaints raised by some MPs on reports by family and friends of Besigye were being restricted access, after he was sent to Luzira on terrorism and illegal possession of guns, alongside his co-accused Obeid Lutaale, following their controversial arrest in Kenya in 2024 and their later arraignment before the General Court Martial.
During the same meeting, Uganda Prisons Services attributed overcrowding in prisons on the increasing development in Uganda, claiming as the country continues to develop, so does the citizenry appetite for good things increase, no wonder, some of them resort to crimes to attain the life they desire.
In its report to Parliament, the Uganda Human Rights Commission established that the current level of congestion in Uganda’s prisons in 2024 stood at 373.2% which was a consequence of the criminal justice system’s policies especially the excessive use of pre-trial detention and imprisonment for minor or petty offences, delayed Police investigations due to limited funding and case backlogs at courts are some of the major causes of congestion in prisons.
Statistics from Uganda Prisons Services highlight that in January 2024, the prisoner population stood at 77,316 against an approved capacity of 20,996, implying an excess of 56,320 prisoners. Unfortunately, by December 2024, UPS’s prison population had increased to 80,076 inmates, three times its holding capacity.
Although Akena admitted the challenge of overcrowding, he however informed the Committee that the trend is shifting where the number of convicts has now surpassed that of inmates on remand.
He also noted that the population of convicts has now overshot the remand, there was a time when actually, it was the reverse, the biggest population of the inmates were on remand.
The Uganda Human Rights Commission also raised concerns over the continued decision by Government to imprison civil debtors alongside inmates on criminal charges and instead proposed to have their assets or salaries attached, as part of the measures to end the high congestion within Prisons across the country.
During its oversight visits across the different prison facilities across the country, the UHRC found that out of the 80,076 inmates detained, 475 of them were civil debtors, with the Commission arguing that the continued detention of civil debtors contributes to the issue of overcrowding in prisons.
Akena acknowledged the holding of civil debtors in the same space as inmates on criminal charges, a trend he attributed to lack on infrastructure that would enable Uganda Prisons Services to separate the two .
