The 2004 Uganda Human Rights Commission report is out and its major recommendation is that torture should be criminalised. According to the report, torture in the country is very serious and is not even declining significantly. While calling upon the state to ensure that all acts of torture falls under criminal law, the report also urges that they should be punished by appropriate penalties. Operatives of security agencies are viewed as major offenders in this regard.

Fighting in northern Uganda has displaced just over 41,000 people in one district alone in the past year, according to an IOM-Danish survey just finished. Attacks by the rebel Lords Resistance Army (LRA) on refugee settlements and villages in Adjumani district which adjoins the more conflict affected region in Northern Uganda, have become more frequent over the past 18 months and has led to a permanent insecure living environment. However, the exact number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Adjumani district has been unclear as has a true picture of the humanitarian situation there.

The law of sedition should be obsolete in democratic societies, warns ARTICLE 19, who supports the petition submitted last week to Uganda's Constitutional Court by journalist Andrew Mwenda which challenges the constitutionality of the country's sedition law. The law of sedition is the crime of speaking words against the state, its basic premise being that it is wrong to criticize public figures or institutions. Mwenda, Political Editor at the Daily Monitor, is currently on trial for using words with an intention of bringing "into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of the President, the government as by law established or the Constitution" during his live talk show "Tonight With Andrew Mwenda" on 93.3 KFM on August 10.

Africa Source II will seek to foster the growth of FOSS expertise amongst technical support professionals working in Africa and facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange around successful implementation of FOSS. The aim of the event is to facilitate learning and exchange between these communities, in particular around the practical deployment of Free and Open Source Technologies. The intention is to move beyond conceptual discussions of the benefits of FOSS and technology in general, and to test out these ideas and focus on practical skill sharing between technology implementers in the region. The workshop will focus on learning by doing, rather than by listening.

Please find below details of a new publication:
Title: Genocide in the African Great Lakes States. Challenges for the International Criminal Court in the Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Author: Kalere, Jean Migabo
Source: International Criminal Law Review, Volume 5, Number 3, September 2005, pp. 463-484(22)
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

The international community and the Ugandan government should take urgent action for an immediate and peaceful resolution of the war in the north in order to stop a "grave humanitarian crisis", an international humanitarian agency announced on Monday. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reported that as many as 1,000 people in northern Uganda are dying each week from violence and war-related problems.

The Daily Monitor's Political Editor, Mr Andrew Mwenda, on Thursday petitioned the Constitutional Court to declare the law of sedition null and void. In a petition filed through the Monitor Publications Limited's lawyers of Nangwala, Rezida and Co. &Advocates, Mwenda claims his criminal prosecution under Section 39 and 40 of the Penal Code Act (PCA) is inconsistence with Article 29 and 43 of the Constitution which prescribes the right to freedom of expression and press.

Sudanese First Vice-President Salva Kiir assured Uganda on Wednesday of his cooperation in the fight against the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which operates from bases in both countries. A statement from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's office said Kiir told the Ugandan leader that both the government in Khartoum and his Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) "are willing to have joint operations with the UPDF (the Ugandan army) against rebels remnants".

Ugandan authorities have told over 1,000 Rwandan asylum seekers to either appeal their unsuccessful applications for refugee status, offer themselves for repatriation or get ready for deportation. At the same time the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Kampala says the failure of Rwandan refugees in Uganda to return home this year has eaten into its budget and forced it to ask for more funds from Geneva outside of its annual budget.

In the first crackdown in 14 years, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has unearthed a racket by 70 commodity importers involved in a fraudulent practice leading to the loss of billions of shillings. The racket was uncovered after URA intercepted forged documents. Analysis of the documents shows that URA has been losing close to Shs2 billion in taxes every month.

UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis and other AIDS advocates on Monday said the Bush administration's policy of emphasizing abstinence-only prevention programs and cuts in federal funding for condoms have contributed to an alleged condom shortage in Uganda and undermined the country's HIV/AIDS fight, London's Guardian reports. Lewis said in a teleconference sponsored by health and human rights groups that "there is no question that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven and exacerbated by [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] and by the extreme policies the administration in the United States is now pursuing".

Kenya has accused Uganda of violating the terms of a regional customs agreement that links the two countries with neighbouring Tanzania. The row comes eight months after the three nations launched the union in an attempt to revive the old East African Community, which collapsed in 1977. Under the agreement, Ugandan companies can import some Kenyan goods duty-free.

Uganda has been widely praised for having a constitution that reflects gender concerns. The 10-year-old document commits the country to affirmative action in the workplace, freedom from sexual discrimination and economic rights for women. It also allows for a commission to monitor whether government programmes discriminate on the basis of sex. In addition, Uganda has pledged to implement the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include the promotion of gender equality by 2015. Nonetheless, progress towards real women's empowerment has been somewhat erratic in the East African country.

The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced it has temporarily suspended its five grants to Uganda citing evidence of mismanagement, Reuters reports. The organization made the decision after an investigation of one of the grants by PricewaterhouseCoopers found evidence of "serious mismanagement" by the Project Management Unit in the Ugandan Ministry of Health, a unit that was established to implement the grants.

Over 18 years of civil war in northern Uganda, fought mainly between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan military, has prevented young people from getting a good education. Over 90 percent of people live in camps for internally displaced persons and most schools in Kitgum and Pader districts are closed despite efforts to achieve Universal Primary Education.

Refugees are facing new difficulties in East Africa. Kenya is host to about 270,000 refugees. Refugees from the turbulent conflicts in Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan have lived in Kenya for decades. Unfortunately, the sense of generosity which allowed those refugees to be welcomed suffered a setback when Immigration minister Linah Kilimo issued an ultimatum for all asylum seekers in the country to either register or risk being deported.

Amnesty International is concerned about the on-going intimidation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activists in Uganda. The latest incident follows steps taken by Ugandan law-makers in July 2005, who voted for a constitutional amendment to criminalize marriage between persons of the same sex. Activist Victor Juliet Mukasa, Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), fears for her safety after her house was raided on the night of 20 July 2005. Local government officials in a suburb of the capital city, Kampala, entered her house in her absence and seized documents and other material, apparently looking for “incriminating evidence” relating to the activities of SMUG.

Alarmingly high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Ugandan fishing communities are threatening the lucrative fishing industry, which brought some US 105 million into the country in 2004, a new government survey has found. Chronic illness and death destroys livelihood and incomes, undermines the skills base in the fishing workforce, and reduces productivity. This is a threat to sustainable fisheries, poverty elimination and economic growth, the report said. It added that the productivity of the fisheries sector, which makes up 12 percent of Uganda's Gross Domestic Product and nearly 20 percent of its total exports, could witness a decline with the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Uganda has launched mobile 'plant clinics' to travel around the country diagnosing and treating outbreaks of crop pests and diseases. The clinics comprise teams of crop specialists who visit rural areas looking out for signs of pests and diseases, and report information on them and the crops affected to the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

Ugandans last Thursday voted overwhelmingly to repeal a two-decade ban on political parties in a national referendum that was, however, boycotted by the opposition, the electoral commission announced on Saturday. A total of 92.5 percent of voters who participated in the plebiscite backed the reforms, based on returns from 99.6 percent of the polling stations.