By Our Reporter
NATIONAL
After 18 years of operating in Kampala, the UN’s human rights mission has closed today, 5th August, 2023 because the Ugandan government has ended its mandate.
Sub-offices in Gulu and Moroto, in northern Uganda, have already closed.
It comes after Uganda passed some of the world’s harshest anti-LGBT laws against the advice of local and international rights groups, including the UN.
In a statement on Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was urging the government to ensure Uganda’s national human rights body can function effectively and independently, as the main body tasked with human rights oversight in the country.
Mr Türk said the majority of 54 NGOs that were “arbitrarily suspended” in 2021 remain closed, and Uganda’s amended computer misuse law could limit free expression even more.
He also expressed deep concern about the run-up to elections in 2026, saying human rights defenders, civil society actors and journalists in Uganda were operating in an increasingly hostile environment.
Explaining its decision to end the mandate of the UN’s human rights office earlier this year, Uganda’s foreign ministry assured the UN of its “commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights”, and the presence of “strong national human rights institutions and a vibrant civil society”.
On February, 3rd, 2023, the Uganda government wrote to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) saying it will not renew its mandate.
Government said then that it has developed its own sufficient capacity to monitor rights compliance.
“The ministry wishes to convey the government’s decision not to renew the mandate of the OHCHR Country office in Uganda beyond the current term,” said the letter.
The OHCHR Uganda office was established in 2006 and was initially allowed to focus only on human rights issues in conflict-plagued areas in Uganda’s north and northeast, according to the Uganda government. It was later allowed to cover the rest of the country.
In the letter, the ministry said the government had since gained enough commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights and that there was “peace throughout the country, coupled with strong national human rights institutions and a vibrant civil society.”
