Activists: "Bars operating contrary to Covid-19 guidelines are exposing country to terror attacks"

Activists have slammed the government for according preferential treatment to some people who are politically connected by allowing them to operate bars contrary to Covid-19 guidelines.

On Saturday night last week, a bomb blast targeting revellers at a pork joint at Komamboga, a Kampala suburb killed one person and left three others critically injured in an attack that police has attributed to domestic terrorism.

Global terrorist group, the Islamic State has since claimed responsibility for the attack but Ugandan security has said they can neither confirm nor deny whether IS had a hand in the blast.

Some eyewitnesses have claimed that the joint where the incident happened was frequented by VIPs and other security personnel.

Speaking during a virtual town hall meeting on the theme Covid-19 and the media under the topic: “Have they given us all we must know about the pandemic?”,  Sarah Bireete, the executive director, Centre for Constitutional Governance said the unfortunate terror attacks on the bar helped to expose some politically connected people who take themselves to be above the law.

“Officially we know bars are closed but bars of people who are politically connected or privileged have been working and this has been exposed by the unfortunate terror attacks on the bar in the night beyond curfew when such places are supposed to be closed, ”said Bireete.

Bireete said the regime has promoted income disparities through preferential treatment of the politically connected people with means to bride or means where police fear to arrest or close their business venture.

"We have the entertainment sector under lockdown and politicians have taken advantage of this by giving handouts and trying to control the business sector because the leading opposition figure comes from that sector," she noted.

She stated that these are some of the layers of several human rights violations, vulnerabilities being taken advantage off by the politically connected people.

Bireete added that failure to provide relief and support for the disadvantaged during lockdown by the government is something that cannot be forgotten.

"Uganda has been praised as a country that has managed Covid-19 so well but the praises don’t look at the wellbeing of the people. Uganda is the country that has kept schools longest in the lockdown, we have the highest level of teenage pregnancies and the president is on record for having said that it is better for children to give birth than dying on Covid-19 instead of condemning ," she said.

Former BBC researcher and investigative journalist, Sonia Elijah said that the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccine have been completely suppressed in the mainstream media.

She noted that vaccines need to be given to people with informed consent and the media is not providing that information.

“People are not given vaccines with informed consent, they are not aware of the dangers,"she said.