Uganda police arrest Kizza Besigye

Uganda police on Thursday arrested opposition chief Kizza Besigye after surrounding his home in Kasangati for hours.

Mr Besigye, a bitter rival of President Yoweri Museveni, was arrested as he attempted to leave his residence.

He was taken to Naggalama Police Station.

The politician woke up to find his house surrounded by police and police cars both at the front and back gate.

When he tried to leave using the back gate, he was asked to get into the pickup there.

Mr Besigye then tried to leave his house using the main entrance but police were stationed there with a police van.

He then questioned them.

“What do you want at my gate,” he asked?

The police did not say anything but bundled him up into the van and took him to the station.

The police also deployed around the homes of Forum for Democratic Change national mobilisation secretary Ingrid Turunawe and Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago ahead of MP Bobi Wines return to Court Marshall.

Ms Turinawe told the Daily Monitor that the siege that started at 5am is unjust.

"This injustice must stop, my home is under siege," she said.

The officers, she said, have blocked her son from going to school.

"My son (a university student), who was going to school, has been pushed back into the gate, I can't understand their real motive," she said.

"He was going to school but he met police officers out of the gate and they blocked him; they asked him if I was in the house and he told them I wasn't in," she added.

It is her son who informed Ms Turinawe of the deployment.

When morning came, Ms Turinawe said, she attempted to seek explanations from the officers in vain.

"None of them has told me anything, they are simply there, standing and not saying a word," she said.

Police is yet to comment about their action but Ms Turinawe insists no amount of deployment will block her from going about her pre-planned "business."

All the routes to Lukwago’s home have been blocked and he has been refused to get out of his house.

The residences of Mr Besigye, and Allan Ssewanyana, a Ugandan sports journalist, human resource manager and politician, have also been surrounded.