Police unfazed by UK government aid cut over rights abuses

The Uganda Police Force has said they are unfazed by the freezing of funding to the force by the United Kingdom government.

The UK government last week announced it had frozen about Shs206 million in funding to Uganda Police Force, Uganda Prisons Service and Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) over human rights abuses.

Speaking to Nile Post on Monday evening, the police Director in charge of Human Rights and Legal Services, Erasmus Twaruhukwa noted that the said funding had stopped in 2019 when a project that the UK government was funding came to a climax.

“The Uganda Police and UK government were dealing on a three-year project on developing human rights policy in the Uganda Police Force. By 2019, the project ended with the launch of a human rights policy attended by both the IGP and the then British High Commissioner,”Twaruhukwa told this website.

“Since then, I am not aware of any other project or funding from them or even a promise of the funding.”

The UK Under-Secretary of State for Africa, James Duddridge told a House of Commons parliamentary session last week that the decision to freeze funding was informed by the manner, in which security responded to the November, 18 and 19 riots after the arrest of National Unity Platform presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi in Luuka that sparked widespread riots.

Duddridge said the projects were aimed at delivering human rights training and materials to the security forces.

 

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