蜜芽传媒

Ugandan author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who won a prestigious prize this year for courageous writing, has been detained, his lawyer has confirmed.

The reason for his arrest is unclear, but he has recently been scathing about President Yoweri Museveni and his son Lt-Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba on Twitter. His lawyer, Eron Kiiza, said he has not been able to gain access to the author and he had not yet been charged.

In his last Facebook post before he was taken away on Tuesday, Mr Rukirabashaija, who won this year's Pen Pinter Prize's International Writer of Courage award, wrote: "I'm under house arrest. Men with guns are breaking my door. They say they're policemen but are not in uniform. I've locked myself inside."

Mr Rukirabashaija is best known for The Greedy Barbarian, a satirical novel which describes high-level corruption in a fictional country, and Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous, an account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention in 2020.

Ronald Ssekajja is President of the Poets Association of Uganda. He says because of the risk of arrest, writers and poets 鈥渟hy-away鈥� from writing anything critical to government.

Picture: Ugandan author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija. Copyright: Pen Pinter Prize

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