Kampala, Uganda: The Uganda Law Society (ULS) has condemned the deployment of police dogs to disperse crowds during the National Unity Platform (NUP) presidential campaign in Kawempe on November 24, describing the action as a gross violation of citizens’ constitutional rights.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Radical New Bar said verified media footage showed police canine units being pushed directly toward civilians, including women and youths standing on the roadside, while officers armed with batons and shields advanced behind them.
Several videos circulating online captured police dogs barking aggressively, lunging toward crowds as people attempted to flee.
Witnesses reported that at around 3:40 pm, officers fired multiple tear gas canisters near the Kawempe-Ttula junction, triggering panic among roadside traders, passengers in taxis, and children who had just been dismissed from nearby schools. Several vendors were seen abandoning their merchandise as clouds of smoke covered the road.
A group of youths attempting to record the confrontation on mobile phones were immediately arrested, while others were chased into nearby alleys.
ULS Vice President, Asiimwe Anthony, said many of those arrested were not part of the campaign procession, but were commuters, cyclists or pedestrians caught in the security operation. He added that the violent scenes reflected a worrying escalation in crowd-control tactics.
“Deploying police dogs at political rallies is a direct violation of the constitutional right to peaceful assembly,” Asiimwe stated.
The ULS statement referenced global historical contexts where police dogs were used as instruments of fear and domination, including apartheid-era South Africa and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
“These were not accidents; they were deliberate displays of state power intended to instill terror,” Asiimwe said, warning that Uganda must not adopt similar tactics in political processes.
ULS further noted that the Police Canine Unit is legally designated for crime-scene analysis, narcotic and explosive detection, tracking and search-and-rescue, not political enforcement. “Unleashing dogs in a crowd is a psychological weapon designed to intimidate citizens.”
Concerns Over Indiscriminate Arrests
The Law Society also criticised what it called arbitrary and indiscriminate arrests in Kawempe. Several bystanders, including riders and traders who were using the main road, were reportedly detained during the chaos.
Footage shared online shows officers dragging a woman from the roadside as she cried out, insisting she was not attending the rally. Another man, reportedly a boda-boda rider, was forced off his motorcycle and pushed into a patrol pickup.
ULS said such arrests breached constitutional safeguards on liberty and due process. “These actions erode public trust in law enforcement and amount to abuse of the rule of law,” the legal body stated.
In its call to action, the Society demands that an immediate halt be called to the use of police dogs in any political gathering, immediate release of innocent civilians arrested in Kawempe and strict adherence to constitutional standards of policing and human dignity
Asiimwe emphasised that the state must not allow security agencies to employ tactics that mirror colonial or apartheid-era suppression methods.
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