Ugandan police arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye for the third time this month Thursday and remanded him in custody after they again broke up a “walk to work” protest with tear gas.
Besigye, who was briefly detained on Monday and last week in similar circumstances, has been staging twice-weekly protests in which he walks to work to denounce rising fuel prices. The protests have left four people dead, three in the northern town of Gulu and one in Kampala.
On Thursday rioting also broke out in Masaka, a town on the road south from Kampala, police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said. On Thursday Besigye drove half way into Kampala and left his car on the edge of town, with hundreds of people soon gathering in his wake, cheering, dancing and lying down on the road in front of him.