Uganda is urged by the Commonwealth to free an opposition lawmaker who is arrested

The 56-nation group’s member, Uganda, was urged by the Commonwealth on Tuesday to free opposition lawmaker Kizza Besigye, claiming that his imprisonment violated human rights and democracy.

However, President Yoweri Museveni downplayed worries about Besigye’s health, characterizing his hunger strike as a kind of extortion meant to elicit pity in order to obtain release.

Public resentment of the government has been heightened by Besigye, a longtime Museveni adversary, being prosecuted by a military court and sentenced to nearly three months in prison for offenses including unlawful handgun ownership.

Besigye, 68, was temporarily hospitalized over the weekend after going on a hunger strike last week, according to an allied politician.

In an unusual attack on a member of the group that sprang out of the British Empire, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland claimed that the incarceration of Besigye, his attorney, and an assistant violated “principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”

“The Commonwealth has always had a relationship based on trust with Uganda and looks forward to the return of a more inclusive and democratic political environment aligned with the Commonwealth Charter,” Scotland said in a statement.

In a statement, Museveni claimed that Besigye was on a hunger strike. The images in the press showed that as one of the contributing factors to his frailty.

That’s unprincipled blackmail, isn’t it? How come you go on a hunger strike to garner support for obtaining bail after being charged with major crimes?

Chris Baryomunsi, Uganda’s minister of information, was not immediately available for comment.

In the past, the government has dismissed allegations of violations of human rights, claiming that arrests and prosecutions are carried out legally.

Besigye’s imprisonment, according to Museveni’s detractors, is the most recent instance of authoritarianism becoming more rigid in the run-up to the presidential election next year, when he is expected to run again. Museveni came to power in 1986.

A police official informed local television that at least five activists, including members of Besigye’s political party, were arrested by police on Monday when they were demonstrating in Kampala, the capital, to call for his release.

Bobi Wine, the runner-up in the most recent presidential election, also claimed on Monday that armed men had kidnapped his brother, a party leader, in Kampala.

Police could not be contacted for comment at this time.