NAIROBI (SONNA):The United States says it is imposing visa restrictions on \u201cthose believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda,\u201c including during the election in January and the campaign period.<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement said the Ugandan government\u2019s actions \u201crepresent a continued downward trajectory for the country\u2019s democracy and respect for human rights.\u201c The election in which longtime President Yoweri Museveni won a sixth term \u201cwas neither free nor fair,\u201c Blinken said.<\/p>\n
The statement did not say who is affected by the visa restrictions.<\/p>\n
The election was a generational clash between Museveni, 76, and the popular singer and opposition lawmaker known as Bobi Wine, 39, who was detained and harassed multiple times ahead of the vote. Wine later alleged widespread irregularities in the election.<\/p>\n
Blinken said that \u201copposition candidates were routinely harassed, arrested, and held illegally without charge. Ugandan security forces were responsible for the deaths and injuries of dozens of innocent bystanders and opposition supporters.\u201d Civil society figures were intimidated and arrested, and journalists were targeted with violence, he said.<\/p>\n
Uganda\u2019s government limited accreditation for election observers to the point where the United States decided not to observe at all.<\/p>\n
Blinken\u2019s statement said the U.S. will consider additional measures against individuals.<\/p>\n
Source: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAIROBI (SONNA):The United States says it is imposing visa restrictions on \u201cthose believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda,\u201c including during the election in January and the campaign period. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement said the Ugandan government\u2019s actions \u201crepresent a continued downward trajectory for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-405007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405009,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405007\/revisions\/405009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}