The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has decided to cease activities in Uganda, and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has justified this decision.
During a press conference at the Uganda-South Africa investment meeting in Pretoria on Wednesday, he was replying to a journalist who questioned Uganda's decision to shut down OHCHR operations.
"This is because we have Ugandan Human Rights Commission which is mandated by the constitution. So having others which are not part of our constitution system is first of all unnecessary, but also diversionary," Mr Museveni said during conference aired by South Africa's state-run television SABC.
"Instead of going to report to where action can be taken, they go to the UN. What can UN do in Uganda? They don't have the powers of enforcement," he added.
Uganda's foreign ministry declared on February 3 that the OCHCR's mandate, which was due to expire at the end of March, would not be extended by the government.
The ministry claimed in a letter to the OHCHR headquarters that Uganda had acquired the ability to monitor, promote, and protect human rights without outside assistance.
Campaigners and human rights advocates have called Uganda's move to close the UN office "shameful" and condemned it.
Opponents see the action as a response from the government to the scrutiny being placed on abuses like torture, forced disappearances, abductions, detentions without charge, and re-arrests of people who have been given a legitimate release by the courts.
