Martha Karua landed at Entebbe International Airport at 8:50 a.m. on Monday. She carried an East African passport, a Ugandan legal practising certificate, and a mandate to represent opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Within minutes, immigration officers seized her phones. They refused to state the charge. By 10:30 a.m., she was declared persona non grata and placed on the next Kenya Airways flight back to Nairobi. No court order was produced. No explanation was given.
The incident marks the third time in 18 months that Karua has been denied entry to an East African Community member state. In 2025, Tanzanian authorities deported her while she was observing the trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu. In Kenya, the Ruto administration has deported human rights lawyers Brian Kagoro and Turkish nationals without judicial oversight. The pattern reveals a coordinated regional strategy to silence legal representation for opposition figures. Uganda’s action against Karua is not an isolated event. It is part of a broader institutional shift where civilian courts are increasingly overseen by military tribunals. Besigye’s treason case is being prosecuted by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces. The same military unit arrested co-counsel Erias Lukwago on June 15 and charged him with misprision of treason. Lukwago’s arrest followed a raid on his home by the Special Forces Command. The military later posted confirmation of his detention on X, a platform controlled by General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of President Yoweri Museveni.
The East African Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that member states must guarantee freedom of movement and legal practice across borders. Uganda’s denial of entry to Karua violates Article 104 of the East African Community Treaty. The treaty requires partner states to allow advocates registered in any member state to appear before courts in another. Karua holds a valid Ugandan practising certificate issued through Lukwago’s firm. The certificate was never revoked. The immigration officers who blocked her entry did not cite any legal instrument. They invoked unspecified security concerns. When Karua demanded clarity, she received silence. The silence is deliberate. It signals that the decision was political, not legal. The timing is instructive. Karua’s entry was blocked one week after Lukwago’s arrest. Lukwago had been representing Besigye since November 2024, when the opposition leader was allegedly abducted in Nairobi during Karua’s book launch. The abduction occurred after Besigye fled Uganda following a treason indictment. His legal team had secured bail conditions that allowed him to travel to Kenya for medical treatment. The Ugandan government responded by revoking the bail and issuing an Interpol red notice. The notice was later withdrawn after Kenya’s High Court ruled it unlawful.
The crackdown on Besigye’s legal team exposes a structural flaw in East Africa’s judicial integration. The East African Law Society, of which Karua is a former secretary-general, has documented 14 cases since 2023 where lawyers were denied entry or deported while representing clients in cross-border litigation. The cases span Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. The common denominator is that the clients were opposition politicians or civil society activists. The deportations are not random. They follow a playbook. Immigration officers confiscate phones to prevent live updates. They hold lawyers incommunicado to create uncertainty. They declare them persona non grata to bar future entry. The playbook is designed to disrupt legal strategy. Besigye’s case involves 12 co-accused, including former army officers. The prosecution has called 47 witnesses. Karua’s absence forces the defence to reconfigure its team mid-trial. It also sends a message to other lawyers: representation of opposition figures carries professional risk.
The Law Society of Kenya condemned Uganda’s action in a statement signed by President Charles Kanjama. The statement warned that the denial of entry undermines the rule of law and regional legal cooperation. It noted that the East African Court of Justice had previously ruled that restrictions on movement must be lawful, transparent, and consistent with the treaty. The court’s ruling in *Samuel Mukira Mohochi v Attorney General of Uganda* (2014) established that member states cannot use national security as a blanket excuse to deny entry. The court held that any restriction must be proportionate, time-bound, and subject to judicial review. Uganda’s treatment of Karua fails all three tests. The restriction was immediate, indefinite, and immune to challenge. The Law Society of Kenya has demanded that Ugandan authorities explain the legal basis for Karua’s deportation. The demand is unlikely to yield results. Uganda’s immigration department operates under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is controlled by General Kahinda Otafiire, a long-time Museveni ally. Otafiire has publicly stated that Uganda will not allow foreign lawyers to interfere in its political cases.
The broader implication is that East Africa’s legal profession is being weaponised. Lawyers are no longer seen as officers of the court. They are treated as political operatives. The weaponisation is not limited to Uganda. In Kenya, the Ruto administration has used the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to raid law firms representing opposition figures. In Tanzania, the Magufuli government amended the Legal Practitioners Act to require foreign lawyers to obtain special permits. The permits are routinely denied to advocates representing opposition clients. The regional trend is clear: governments are erecting legal firewalls to insulate themselves from accountability. The firewalls are not just physical. They are digital. Karua’s phones were confiscated without a warrant. She refused to reclaim them, fearing they had been tampered with. The fear is justified. Uganda’s Communications Act allows security agencies to intercept communications without judicial oversight. The act was used in 2024 to block social media during Besigye’s trial. The same agencies have access to Pegasus spyware, which was detected on Lukwago’s phone after his arrest.
The East African Community’s response has been tepid. The EAC Secretariat issued a statement expressing concern but took no concrete action. The secretariat lacks enforcement power. Its decisions are subject to veto by member states. Uganda, as the current chair of the EAC Council of Ministers, has blocked any discussion of the Karua incident. The impasse reveals the limits of regional integration. The EAC was designed to promote economic cooperation. It was not equipped to handle political repression. The community’s legal framework assumes that member states respect the rule of law. The assumption is no longer valid. The Karua incident is a test case. If Uganda faces no consequences, the precedent will embolden other states to target lawyers. The Law Society of Kenya has threatened to file a petition with the East African Court of Justice. The court has jurisdiction over human rights violations under the treaty. However, the court’s rulings are not self-executing. They require political will to enforce. Political will is absent. Kenya’s foreign ministry has not issued a statement. Tanzania and Rwanda have remained silent. The silence is complicity.
