HRW: Uganda failing to hold senior officials accountable for corruption News
HRW: Uganda failing to hold senior officials accountable for corruption
Photo source or description

[JURIST] The government of Uganda is failing to hold senior officials accountable for corruption, according to a report [text, PDF; press release] released Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] and Yale Law School’s Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic [academic website]. The Ugandan government has reportedly also arrested at least 28 anti-corruption activists while the activists attempted to distribute information to the public about corruption. According to the report, Uganda’s anti-corruption institutions are undermined through political interference, such as senior officials directing delays in prosecution or pushing for premature trials based on weak evidence. The groups claim that the corruption has also directly impacted human rights, causing losses of donations worth USD $12.7 million from plans to rebuild northern Uganda in 2012; $45 million from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in 2010; and $12 million from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations [advocacy websites] in 2006.The research for the report was collected from May to September from reports from local activists, developmental partners, and the World Bank and included interviews with people with substantive knowledge of anti-corruption efforts in Uganda.

Uganda [JURIST news archive] has drawn much international criticism in recent years regarding alleged human rights violations and treatment of those who are deemed to be government opposition. In August independent UN experts called for the repeal [JURIST report] of recently passed legislation in Uganda limiting the size of public demonstrations. In August 2012 HRW reported [JURIST report] that the government of Uganda was harassing and intimidating rights groups and other non-government organizations (NGOs). Earlier that June Uganda’s government banned 38 NGOs accused of promoting gay rights [JURIST report]. Also in June UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] warned [JURIST report] that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) opposition group still poses a threat to children in Uganda. In May 2011 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] urged [JURIST report] Uganda’s government to stop using what she called excessive force against protesters in the country.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.