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People's Liberation Party leader Martha Karua addresses the Press at JKIA in Nairobi after deportation from Uganda, June 22, 2026. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]
The recent detention of Senior Counsel Martha Karua at Entebbe International Airport is an affront not only to her as a lawyer, but to every principle the East African Community (EAC) claims to uphold.
Ms Karua was travelling to defend lawyer Erias Lukwago, with whom she has been representing detained Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who is on trial for treason. Through this incident, Uganda did not simply turn away a visitor. Poignantly, it turned away a lawyer on her way to court.
This is not the first time Karua has been mistreated in a neighbouring East African state. In 2024, she was detained and deported from Tanzania where she had planned to attend the treason trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu. Her deportation and the mistreatment of activists from Kenya and Uganda drew global condemnation but lessons, it seems, were never learned.
