By Spy Uganda
Kampala: According to reports quoting Police Spokesperson Fred Enanga, famous novelist Rukirabashaija Kakwenza is behind bars over allegations of offensive communication against ‘popular individuals’.Â
According to sources, Kakwenza’s arrest came after his viral tweets that were ‘hitting’ military personalities, human rights violators and misusers of government resources.
According to his lawyer Eron Kiiza and close friends, currently they don’t know where Kakwenza is detained and security operatives have since denied his family members and lawyers access to him.
“Armed men claiming to be from the Uganda Police Force” broke into Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s home on Tuesday, his lawyer Eron Kiiza said, adding that he had been on the telephone to his client at the time.
“I heard them threaten to break his legs,” Kiiza added.
According to Kiiza, witnesses saw Rukirabashaija being bundled into a van known as a “drone”, which is associated with abductions of government opponents in Uganda.
In his last Facebook post before he was taken away on Tuesday, Rukirabashaija wrote: “I’m under house arrest. Men with guns are breaking my door. They say they’re policemen but are not in uniform. I’ve locked myself inside.”
Rukirabashaija won this year’s Pen Pinter Prize’s International Writer of Courage award.
He is best known for The Greedy Barbarian, a satirical novel which describes high-level corruption in a fictional country, and Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous, an account of the torture he said was subjected to while in detention in 2020.
The opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party has condemned Rukirabashaija’s arrest, urging that he be freed.
