Uganda warning on honking protest

Ugandan police have warned people planning to hoot car horns in protest at the rising cost of living they will face arrest for noise pollution.

The opposition call to honk horns or whistle five times at 1700 local time (1400 GMT) is to complement the “walk-to-work” protest begun in April.

Rights groups have criticised the police crackdown on the protests in which nine people have died.

This month Yoweri Museveni was sworn in for a fourth term as president.

He says he wants a new law to deny bail for six months to those arrested for rioting or causing economic sabotage.

Uganda’s main opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been arrested four times and placed under preventative arrest once since the protests against the rising cost of food and fuel began.

The government accuses him of using trying to organise an Egypt-style uprising after losing the election.

Henry Bellingham, the UK’s minister for Africa, called on Mr Museveni to rise above “petty party politics”.

He said the “very tough tactics” used against Dr Besigye were a concern for the UK government, one of Uganda’s largest aid donors.

“President Museveni won with a big majority, he should now be magnanimous, he should be statesman-like, he should rise above trying to make any moves against the opposition,” Mr Bellingham told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“[He should] carry on the excellent work which he’s doing in many ways in terms of the prosperity agenda in Uganda [and] counter-terrorism.

“On all these fronts Museveni has been doing a good job, but I think it demeans him and his government to use excessive force and these tactics against the opposition.”

‘Partisan police’

Police spokesperson Ibin Ssenkumbi said the force’s stance on the horn protest would the be same as the “walk-to-work” campaign.

“[The] Car hooting act is illegal… what I can say is that any protester will be subject to arrest,” he is quoted by Uganda’s Daily Monitor newspaper as saying.

Another police spokesman, Vincent Ssekate, cited a law against noise pollution and told the BBC anyone hooting near a hospital or school would definitely be picked up.

The opposition MP behind the Activists for Change campaign urged those without a car to join in.

“Whoever cannot hoot should simply bang a table, a calabash, a saucepan or any tool or instrument that can produce a sound or noise for five minutes,” Mathias Mpuuga said, the Daily Monitor reports.

Mr Mpuuga questioned whether anything was now legal in Uganda – after recent walk-to-work protests were broken up by the police.

He said the police force was over-enthusiastic and partisan, adding it was like a robot being controlled from State House.

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the government sees sinister motives in the opposition’s protests and accuses it of encouraging violence and chaos.

Dr Besigye says he was cheated in February’s election, although he mustered only half as many votes as Mr Museveni.

Last month, riots broke out in Kampala in protest at the rough treatment meted out to Dr Besigye by the security services during his arrest on 29 April.

Plain-clothed policemen were filmed beating up his supporters, smashing the window of his car and dousing the inside with pepper spray and tear gas before manhandling him into a vehicle and driving off.

The authorities say Dr Besigye provoked them – and he was charged with inciting violence.