Kizza Besigye conscious but unable to speak, wife says

Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye is conscious but very weak and unable to speak in a Kampala intensive care unit, his wife Winnie Byanyima said on August 3, days after he collapsed during a treason trial hearing.

Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, spoke outside Mulago Hospital in Kampala after seeing her husband. “He looks very weak,” she said. She said he slept for a long time and, when he opened his eyes, still could not talk.

Byanyima said Besigye was also unable to write because his hands were not stable. She said he had been fed through intravenous lines until Monday, when the lines were removed and he was able to take soup. “So today, there was a sense of progress,” she said.

Besigye, 70, was admitted to intensive care after collapsing during a court hearing on July 30. He collapsed moments after objecting to the court's decision to appoint lawyers to represent him. His lead defence lawyer was arrested, and former Kenyan justice minister Martha Karua, another member of his legal team, was barred from entering Uganda.

Besigye has been in jail since late 2024 after being abducted in Kenya and brought back to Uganda. He is a long-time rival of President Yoweri Museveni and is on trial for treason over an alleged plot against him.

Byanyima demanded that Besigye's rights to life, proper medical care and a fair trial be respected, saying they were being ignored. “I'm simply asking that the Constitution of Uganda is respected and is applied, fairly and equally to Dr Kizza Besigye,” she said.

Besigye was once Museveni's doctor during their time as insurgents in the 1980s, but they later fell out. He has run for the presidency several times and has often faced repression.