Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine said Tuesday that police had surrounded his home and “put him under house arrest” as he prepared to campaign for a by-election.
“The military has increased its deployment around my house. No one is allowed in or out,” tweeted the 39-year-old former pop star, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi.
Bobi Wine was due to travel to Kayunga, in the center of the country, on Tuesday to attend a campaign rally for an opposition candidate in a local election. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was also scheduled to hold a rally Tuesday in Kayunga.
“A security guard and a gardener were assaulted and arrested,” said Bobi Wine, adding that the two men were taken away in a police car and their cell phones confiscated by the police.
In January, after the presidential election in which he came second to President Museveni, who was re-elected for a sixth term, Bobi Wine – who has been arrested several times in recent years – was effectively placed under house arrest for almost two weeks. For eleven days, soldiers and police surrounded his home in Magere, north of Kampala, and filtered access to his house and the exits of its occupants, including his wife Barbie.
