The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, has implored civil society organisations in the country not to mix human rights advocacy with political activism. 

Giving a keynote address during the fifth Human Rights Convention 2023 at Golf Course Hotel in Kampala on Wednesday, November 15, Mao said the Government has since discovered that some political actors are using human rights challenges as a tool to cause political change in Uganda.  

He said some actors have gone an extra mile of sponsoring protests for purposes of provoking the Government and security agencies to cause the attention of the world powers.  

“Government has since established that there are those who want to cause political change in Uganda whose human rights activism is from the posture of changing Government. 

If your motive is to change the Government, I think you better off playing that game from a political party rather than a civil society organisation,” Mao said. 

 “You are actually safer in a political party because if you form a political party, your intentions are clear to evict the incumbent government and replace it with yours other than disguising under human rights activism,” he added. 

The two-day convention was organised by Chapter Four Uganda in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union. 

Mao said human rights violation is not a policy of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Government and it is determined to fight the vice. 

“It is not my duty to come here and sanitise the human rights situation in Uganda. I am disgusted by it myself but there are discussions going on behind the scenes and I don’t want to go into the details. I, however, welcome the proposal for strategic litigation because that is how land owners have liberated their land from the corrupt land boards,” Mao said. 

Responding to the German ambassador’s demands for the November 2020 riots report in which over 50 people were killed by stray bullets as a group of citizens were protesting against the arrest of former presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, Mao said it will soon be released. 

“I agree that the impunity we witnessed from the security forces in the November 2020 was basically by those who believed that they were protecting the state but the people who have been killed in Apaa are more than those that were killed during the November 2020 riots. 

It is therefore the responsibility of the intellectuals to speak the truth and expose the lies,” Mao said. 

Mao said while civil society organisations in the country are seemingly under attack, democracy cannot depend on the Government or state alone, noting that organised citizens are the lifeblood of democracy. 

“I believe Chapter Four can be a model to be emulated by other civil society organisations. The themes you have chosen are critical because whoever engages in human rights needs to be protected. The fact that Nicholas Opio was arrested and jailed is in itself a sign that the space for human rights activists in Uganda is not as safe as it should be,” Mao noted. 

On the labour export, Mao said the Government doesn’t consider it as an employment strategy for its citizens. 

On charging civilians in the Court Martial, Mao encouraged the civil society organisations to push the debate further saying, “You cannot have a fair trial if taken to military court. We are right now fighting against that. Military is part of the executive and independence of the judiciary means that you have a judiciary that is not under the executive.” 

Mao revealed that a Cabinet standing committee on human rights has since been put in place to ensure that human rights are upheld. 

Dr Zahara Nampeewo, the Chapter Four Board chairperson, said this year’s convention focuses on migration and the quest for peaceful and inclusive societies.