Uganda police arrest opposition leader Besigye again

Ugandan police arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Thursday for the fourth time this month. Before being detained Besigye told RFI that police were preventing him taking pary in ongoing "walk to work" demonstrations to protest against rising food and fuel prices.

Reuters/James Akena

The opposition leader had only just been released from a week in custody, after being granted bail on Wednesday.

Speaking to RFI earlier on Thursday, he said, "I left home as usual today, but policemen were on my property. They said I was not allowed onto the road and I was not allowed to walk to my workplace."

He then left his house by car, and drove from his home on the outskirts of Kampala to the city centre, where he intended to begin his walk to work from another location.

A crowd of several hundred supporters formed around Besigy's vehicle when he claimed he was prevented by the police from driving to the bank.

Plain-clothes police officers smashed his car windows with a hammer and sprayed him with tear gas, forcing the opposition leader and his bodyguards out of the vehicle.

Besigye was then bundled into the back of a pick-up truck by policemen and at least three other members of his entourage were also driven away.

The crowd then started throwing stones at the police who responded with tear gas, eventually dispersing the demonstrators.

Reacting to media reports that President Yoweri Museveni was prepared to meet him next week, Besigye told RFI, "I haven't been contacted by the president. But what is needed if they want to talk to us is a national dialogue. Not discussions between Museveni and Besigye.

"There is a national crisis that goes beyond party politics. We need a dialogue that puts on the table the underlying causes of this national crisis that is making the government respond in this strange and riotous way."