Mabirizi claims that the prison’s services have been mismanaged by its leaders, leading to the aforementioned abuses as well as inmate-to-inmate crimes, including Homosêxuality. .
In lawsuits filed with the Kampala High Court, the Nakawa Magistrates’ Court and the East African Court of Justice, Mabiziri said he is suing the prison authorities as an individual.
These include Johnson Byabashaija, Uganda Prison Service Commissioner General and two others; Brian Mbazira and Kenneth Simon Lubanga, whom he accuses of “violating human rights at the superior Luzira prison”, where he was being held.
Mabirizi made the revelation on Saturday afternoon, hours after being released from Luzira prison where he was sent last February for contempt of court. In a lengthy statement he read upon his release, Mabirizi said he was suing the prison authorities over what he called “acts of torture, inhumanity, cruelty and humiliation” by the prison authorities. prison made for prisoners.
These men, he said, “often beat inmates by dousing them with water and making them naked in cells filled with water”. Overcrowding in Luzira and other county jails has exacerbated the situation, according to the attorney.
He noted that in January of this year, the number of prisoners was 74,444, but the prisons only had a capacity of 20,036 people.
Mabirizi also claimed that the prisoners suffered from malnutrition and poor sanitation.
The lawyer also alleges that overcrowding and a lack of marriage rights has led to cases of homosexuality in prisons and a high risk of transmission of sëxually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS among inmates.
“People are held for decades without conjugal rights and no hope of ever sleeping with women again, so they resort to young men who are vulnerable in terms of feeding and other necessities,” Mabirizi Said.
During the year he was held in Luzira, Mabirizi said he witnessed two cases of Homosêxuality, involving long-term prisoners and young inmates.
“In my last month in prison, a 23-year-old man on remand was found being sodomised in one of the classrooms by a convict serving life imprisonment for robbery and rãpe. Both of them admitted using cooking oil,” Mabirizi Alleged.
Another incident occurred early last year, he said, when another inmate was also caught in the room with a young inmate, and both were saved by guards from being executed by fellow inmates.
“My issue with Uganda Prisons is that they consider Homosêxuality as an internal matter yet in our penal code the maximum penalty is life imprisonment,” Mabirizi Said
Ugandan prisons refused to respond to Mr. Mabirizi’s request when contacted. UPS spokesman Frank Baine said he would not legalize the charges and advised Mabirizi to seek legal redress if desired.