{UAH} The Public Order Management Act was never meant to aid management of public gatherings,
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12:23 PM |
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BY JACKIE ASIIMWE-MWESIGYE
I have come to one conclusion. The Public Order Management Act was never meant to aid management of public gatherings, but rather to stop them. Yesterday, women, under their umbrella, "Women4Uganda" wanted to do a Jericho walk around Parlaiment and a sit down at the Parliamentary gardens, to pray for our legislature, as well as to pass on our message that we do not support the lifting of age limit for judges, because we read it as an eventual gateway to lifting age limit for the presidency.
As required by law, we notified police, and we also notified KCCA. The police received our letter and even said they would provide us security and they marked our date for action on their calendar. KCCA gave us assurances that we would get the permit to use the CHOGAM ground outside Parliament for our gathering.
But yesterday, everything changed. KCCA said we needed to get 'permission' from police before they could give us a permit to use the garden. Police said Parliament first needed to approve our action. Parliament said since the garden is not theirs but KCCA's we first needed to get a permit from KCCA. KCCA said police first has to give permission, and so the ping pong went on like that. In the mean time, police had deployed heavily at both National Theatre, where we had intended to gather, and also deployed at the CHOGAM garden. The level of deployment showed that they were not about to allow any action to go on.
Further, Police questioned the motive of our prayer. They then claimed to have heard that women wanted to obstruct Parliament and that police weren't sure we wouldn't bomb Parliament. In the end, each institution wanted the other to be the first to commit in writing that we could go ahead with our action, but none of the institutions wanted to be the first to give this go ahead.
We gathered at National Theatre in the hope that we would make progress with the 'permissions', failing which, we would disperse and try another course of action. Police wouldn't even have that. They refused us to gather and instead, brought a police pick up and arrested some women. The women had committed no crime and so of course were released with no charge.
I felt very sad for my country yesterday. Police deploy so heavily to stop citizens speaking out. They prefer that we resort to our press conferences because that is safe and sanitized. As soon as you want to be express yourself in a different way, that is not allowed.
The DPC at Kiira police station gave us a lecture about following the law and we informed him that we had followed the law to the letter. He ended by telling us to learn to love our country.
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-- I have come to one conclusion. The Public Order Management Act was never meant to aid management of public gatherings, but rather to stop them. Yesterday, women, under their umbrella, "Women4Uganda" wanted to do a Jericho walk around Parlaiment and a sit down at the Parliamentary gardens, to pray for our legislature, as well as to pass on our message that we do not support the lifting of age limit for judges, because we read it as an eventual gateway to lifting age limit for the presidency.
As required by law, we notified police, and we also notified KCCA. The police received our letter and even said they would provide us security and they marked our date for action on their calendar. KCCA gave us assurances that we would get the permit to use the CHOGAM ground outside Parliament for our gathering.
But yesterday, everything changed. KCCA said we needed to get 'permission' from police before they could give us a permit to use the garden. Police said Parliament first needed to approve our action. Parliament said since the garden is not theirs but KCCA's we first needed to get a permit from KCCA. KCCA said police first has to give permission, and so the ping pong went on like that. In the mean time, police had deployed heavily at both National Theatre, where we had intended to gather, and also deployed at the CHOGAM garden. The level of deployment showed that they were not about to allow any action to go on.
Further, Police questioned the motive of our prayer. They then claimed to have heard that women wanted to obstruct Parliament and that police weren't sure we wouldn't bomb Parliament. In the end, each institution wanted the other to be the first to commit in writing that we could go ahead with our action, but none of the institutions wanted to be the first to give this go ahead.
We gathered at National Theatre in the hope that we would make progress with the 'permissions', failing which, we would disperse and try another course of action. Police wouldn't even have that. They refused us to gather and instead, brought a police pick up and arrested some women. The women had committed no crime and so of course were released with no charge.
I felt very sad for my country yesterday. Police deploy so heavily to stop citizens speaking out. They prefer that we resort to our press conferences because that is safe and sanitized. As soon as you want to be express yourself in a different way, that is not allowed.
The DPC at Kiira police station gave us a lecture about following the law and we informed him that we had followed the law to the letter. He ended by telling us to learn to love our country.
--
"War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
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