The Ugandan government has terminated the UN human rights mission’s mandate, so it will shut down on Saturday after 18 years of operations in Kampala.
Sub-offices in northern Uganda’s Gulu and Moroto have already been closed.
It comes after Uganda, against the advise of national and international rights organisations, including the UN, approved among of the world’s worst anti-LGBT laws.
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the government to make sure that Uganda’s national human rights authority, which is the primary organisation charged with overseeing human rights in the nation, can operate efficiently and independently in a statement released on Friday.
The majority of the 54 NGOs that were “arbitrarily suspended” in 2021, according to Türk, are still shut down, and Uganda’s revised internet misuse law may further restrict free speech, he added.
He also expressed great concern about the lead-up to the 2026 elections, noting that journalists, civil society actors, and advocates for human rights were working in an increasingly hostile climate in Uganda.
Explaining its decision to end the mandate of the UN’s human rights office earlier this year, Uganda’s foreign ministry assured the UN of its “commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights”, and the presence of “strong national human rights institutions and a vibrant civil society”.