Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Ugandan police officers of harassing, detaining, and abusing activists and protestors against a large East African oil project led by the French conglomerate TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's $10 billion initiative to develop oilfields in Uganda has been lauded as an economic bonanza by President Yoweri Museveni. Still, it has been criticized by rights activists and environmental groups.
France is facing legal action, and the European Parliament has expressed concern over the wrongful incarceration of environmental campaigners and the displacement of individuals from their land without adequate compensation.
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The project entails constructing over 400 oil wells in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda's largest protected area, and transporting crude via a 1,445-kilometer (900-mile) pipeline to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
TotalEnergies claims that persons displaced by the project have been fairly paid and that environmental safeguards have been put in place.
Between March and September 2023, HRW interviewed 31 persons in Uganda and Tanzania, including 21 activists, many of whom said they had endured a torrent of threats, intimidation, and arrests without charge.
Former leader of the Oil and Gas Human Rights Defenders Association, which advocates for appropriate compensation for individuals displaced, John Kaheero Mugisa, told HRW that he was detained multiple times and that his health has deteriorated after seven months in prison.
Activists in Uganda's capital, Kampala, and Buliisa and Hoima, which are closest to the oilfields, claim their offices were raided in 2021.
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