Processing National Identity cards at the National Identification and Registry Authority in Kampala, Uganda, on Nov. 10.
Photographer: Badru Katumba/Bloomberg
Uganda’s Sweeping Surveillance State Is Built on National ID Cards
The East African country’s identity card system has become integral to banking, voting — and targeting critics
Nick Opiyo had just ordered lunch in a Kampala restaurant on the last working day before Christmas when armed, uniformed security forces swarmed his table, handcuffed him, covered his head with a sack he says smelled of blood, and bundled him into an unmarked van. His laptop, phone, documents and car keys were confiscated and he was interrogated for several days, accused of money laundering, not paying taxes or filing returns — allegations he denies. The 43-year-old spent his holiday behind bars, and the government dropped the charges nine months later.
Opiyo, one of Uganda’s top human rights lawyers, believes that there was an ulterior motive for his December 2020 detention: he and his team at the legal nonprofit Chapter Four had been gathering evidence linking state security forces to extrajudicial killings in the run-up to the 2021 general election. The government had officially acknowledged 54 deaths connected to protests, which erupted after the arrest of an opposition leader. But Opiyo says he collected post-mortem reports, photos and family testimony indicating that the number of people killed was almost three times greater.