NAIROBI, July 30, 2008 (AFP) - Rights groups on Wednesday urged Uganda to investigate the alleged detaining and torture of a gay rights activist on trial for protesting against discrimination last month.
Usaam Mukwaya and two other activists were charged with trespass last month after staging a protest during a global HIV/AIDS conference in Kampala to complain of discrimination.
In a statement, the New York-based Human Rights Watch and two other rights groups, said Mukwaya was then picked up by police last Friday and taken to an undisclosed location where he was mistreated.
"One of the women officers scraped his knuckles with a razor-like object. Later, the man (a police officer) tied him to a machine that stretched his arms," the statement said.
He was then forced to strip to his underwear, asked if he was a man or a woman and made to walk around the room in his underwear before being freed, the rights groups cited Mukwaya as saying.
"The abduction and torture of a Ugandan HIV/AIDS activist who faces trial for holding a peaceful protest reveals the danger to those who challenge the government's policies," the lobby group said.
They also called on Ugandan authorities to "investigate the abduction and torture and sanction those responsible." They also said charges against all three activists be dropped.
"Uganda's government promotes homophobia when it should be protecting its citizens against HIV/AIDS," said Scott Long, HRW's director for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Programme.
But Kampala police spokesman Simeo Nsubuga denied Mukwaya was tortured, accusing him instead of seeking publicity.
"There is nothing to show the person in question was tortured by our officers," Nsubuga told AFP.
"This is one case of an indiviual seeking attention by using allegations of torture. He instead took advantage of lack of research by those organisations to deceive the world," he added.
As in much of Africa, homosexuality is illegal, and in Uganda it is punishable by imprisonment up to life.
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