Pop star Bobi Wine charged with annoying Ugandan president

August 6, 2019
| Report Focus News

Ugandan MP and musician Bobi Wine have been charged with intending to annoy, alarm or ridicule the president.

The new charge is an addition to a previous charge of treason.

In an alleged incident that led to his arrest, the MP and his colleagues are accused of hurling stones at the presidential convoy during an election rally in the northern town of Arua in 2018.

If convicted, Wine faces up to life in prison.

Wine and many of his colleagues say that they were tortured while in detention, something the authorities deny.

Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, is still facing charges in another court, for staging a protest against a law that imposed a tax on mobile money transactions and use of social media in 2018.

The musician-turned-MP, who has become an opposition force against President Yoweri Museveni’s three-decade rule, recently announced that he will stand for president in the 2021 election.