Uganda: Enforced disappearances of Kenyan activists Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo

UGA 005 / 1025 / OBS 063
Enforced disappearance /
Obstacles to freedom of assembly
Uganda
15 October 2025

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Uganda.

Description of the situation:

The Observatory has been informed by Freedom Hive Uganda of the ongoing enforced disappearance of two Kenyan human rights defenders in Uganda, Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo. Both are members of the Free Kenya Movement, a human rights group that focuses on political and civil rights, accountability and social justice in Kenya.

On 1 October 2025, Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo were forcibly taken by men dressed in military and civilian clothing at a petrol station in Kaliro District, Eastern Uganda. The two activists were in Uganda to monitor a political campaign rally of opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, who is running against the current Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in the upcoming January 2026 general elections.

On 6 October 2025, lawyers Eron Kiiza and Kato Tumusiime, representing Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo, filed a habeas corpus application before the High Court of Uganda. This application sought to compel the Chief of Defence Forces (also President Museveni’s son), along with the Chief of Defence Intelligence and Security, the Inspector General of Police, and the Attorney General of Uganda to unconditionally and immediately release Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo. At the hearing on 14 October 2025, the Ugandan authorities denied holding the two activists in custody. Justice Kinobe Peter ordered the Ugandan government to produce Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo, dead or alive, within seven days. A second hearing is scheduled on 21 October, during which the High Court of Uganda will review the developments in the case.

On 7 October 2025, the OMCT, together with Freedom Hive Uganda, submitted a request for urgent humanitarian action to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which can review the case and refer it to the Ugandan government, which will be called upon to provide an explanation.

As the time of publication of this Urgent Alert, the fate and whereabouts of Mr Bob Njagi and Mr Nicholas Oyoo remain unknown. The activists are believed to be detained at the Defence Intelligence and Security agency (DIS), formerly known as the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), an entity reportedly associated with the incommunicado detention and torture ofactivists and opposition supporters in Uganda.

The Observatory recalls that Bob Njagi was forcibly disappeared and tortured for a month in August 2024 after participating in the brutally repressed anti-government protests in Kenya.

The Observatory recalls that of over the past several months, the governments of Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya have intensified oppressive practices that pose a serious threat to democracy and fundamental rights. The normalisation of regime policing, the weaponisation of state agencies, the enactment of repressive legislation, as well as the persistence of arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and transnational abductions have stained the democratic fabric within the East Africa Community. Transnational repression among the three countries has increased as well, as shown by the deportation of Martin Mavenjina to Uganda, and the forcible disappearance of Boniface Mwangi from Tanzania and Agather Atuhaire from Uganda in Tanzania.

The Observatory strongly condemns the enforced disappearance of Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, which appears to be an act of reprisal for their legitimate political and civil rights work.

The Observatory urges the Ugandan authorities to take all necessary measures to disclose the fate and whereabouts of Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, to ensure their immediate and unconditional release, and to conduct a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into their enforced disappearance. These actions should be carried out in line with the 2023 United Nations Human Rights Committee’s concluding observations on the second periodic report of Uganda.

The Observatory recalls that, in its 2022 concluding observations on the second periodic report of Uganda, the United Nations Committee against Torture urged the Ugandan authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure that the right to habeas corpus is “respected in practice and effective in ensuring the release of individuals in detention”.

The Observatory further calls on the Ugandan authorities to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the State signed on 6 February 2007.

Action required:

1. Guarantee in all circumstances the physical integrity and psychological well-being of Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo and all human rights defenders in Uganda ;
2. Take all necessary measures to determine and disclose the fate and whereabouts of Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, and to ensure that they have access to their family and legal counsel;
3. Carry out an immediate, thorough, and impartial investigation into the enforced disappearance of Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, and bring the perpetrators to justice in accordance with international human rights standards and United Nations Human Rights Committee’s recommendations;
4. Guarantee, in all circumstances, that human rights defenders in Uganda are able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all undue restrictions, including enforced disappearance, torture or other arbitrary sanctions; and
5. Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

• Mr Kaguta Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, E-mail: museveni@starcom.co.ug / aak@statehouse.go.ug, X: @KagutaMuseveni

• Ms Robinah Nabbanja, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda, Email: ps@opm.go.ug, X: @RobinahNabbanja

• Mr Jeje Odongo Abubakher, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uganda, X: @UgandaMFA

• Hon. Norbert Mao, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of Uganda, Email: info@jlos.go.ug / info@justice.go.ug

• Hon. Kiryowa Kiwanuka, Attorney General of Uganda, Email: info@jlos.go.ug / info@justice.go.ug

• Ms. Jane Frances Abodo, Director of Public Prosecutions, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of Uganda, Email: admin@dpp.go.ug

• Ms. Mariam Fauzat Wangadya, Chairperson, Uganda Human Rights Commission, Email: uhrc@uhrc.ug

• H.E. Mr. Marcel Robert Tibaleka, Permanent Mission of Uganda to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Email: chancery@ugandamission.ch

• H.E. Mirjam Blaak Sow, Embassy of Uganda to the EU in Brussels, Belgium. Email: ugembrus@brutele.be, info@ugandamission-benelux.org

Please also write to the diplomatic representations of Uganda in your respective countries.

***

Geneva-Paris, 15 October 2025

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken, quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this programme is to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.

To contact the Observatory, call the emergency line:

• E-mail: alert@observatoryfordefenders.org

• Tel FIDH: + 33 (0) 1 43 55 25 18

• Tel OMCT: + 41 22 809 49 39