Uganda arrests American for ‘subversive activities’

Kampala: An American citizen has been arrested in Uganda on suspicion of subversion against the government, police said.

Guy Smith was arrested by a specialist security team in the western town of Fort Portal on Sunday for “alleged involvement in anti-government subversive activities”, and is being held in Kampala, police said in a statement Monday.

Smith’s wife Sharon Tusiime told AFP that the 63-year-old retired builder, who is originally from Kentucky and has lived in Uganda for more than 20 years, was taken from their home in the early hours of Sunday.

She said that neighbours described seeing armed men in plain clothes take her husband away in a vehicle known in Uganda as a “drone” — a van with blacked out windows and no number plate.

These vehicles have become notorious for use by security forces to abduct opposition activists following a disputed January 2021 election, with multiple cases documented by Human Rights Watch.

“The recent spate of enforced disappearances has only compounded the intense climate of fear in Uganda following the recent violent national elections,” Oryem Nyeko, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement earlier this month.