The legal team of the dismissed Principal of Heritage International School is considering legal action against the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control over alleged irregularities surrounding the academician’s arrest and detention.
Dr Kymmberli Stowe, an American national, was dismissed in October by Heritage International School in Kansanga, where she had been serving as the school principal. The school cited Dr Stowe’s alleged failure to disclose a legal dispute with her former employer, the American School of Benguerir in Morocco, as the reason for her dismissal.
Heritage International School claimed that she falsely indicated she had served as acting head of school when she was, in fact, on leave. Following her dismissal, Dr Stowe filed several petitions with government offices and gave media interviews in which she detailed alleged abuse she encountered while working at Heritage International School. This, according to her associates, led to further trouble.
She was later arrested by police and detained on Jinja Road, where she was reportedly interrogated about her citizenship before being released.
On Thursday, Dr Stowe met the Commissioner of Labour, accompanied by her legal team, in response to a prior invitation for a mediation meeting with the school administration at the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. The meeting reportedly ended without resolution.
According to her associates, Dr Stowe returned to her home in Kansanga after the meeting, only to be picked up by armed individuals and detained at an undisclosed location.
Suuna James, a close friend and human rights activist, condemned the arrest as illegal, citing the absence of an arrest warrant.“They forced themselves into her house at around 6:00 pm, found her in the bathroom, and took her away. After we got the information, we rushed to Jinja Road Police, but she wasn’t there,” Suuna said.
However, Dr Stowe’s lawyer, Victor Asiimwe, told Uganda Radio Network on Saturday that she is currently being held at the Immigration detention facility on Jinja Road in Kampala.
“We got information that she was being held at Jinja Road in the detention facility of Immigration. We rushed there early in the morning and they tossed us up until they granted us access to see her. She hasn’t eaten anything, her health condition is not good, and she narrated the manner in which they arrested her from a bathroom when she was naked. The entire arrest was so, so embarrassing,” Asiimwe said.
He alleged that Dr Stowe’s visa and work permit had been cancelled in the immigration system in an attempt to portray her as having stayed in Uganda illegally. He further claimed that her former employer was behind the alleged harassment and repeated attempts to have her deported in order to avoid impending legal action.
According to Asiimwe, he and other lawyers are preparing to take legal action against immigration authorities over what he described as multiple illegalities.
“Some of the irregularities include the mode of enforcement and arrest, the procedure of decision-making, the nature of detention, and the abuse of her fundamental human rights, which cannot be derogated from. She told me that when they reached the detention facility, they put her in a room with women and men and searched her for the passport,” Asiimwe stated.
In petitions submitted to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Dr Stowe has claimed that her dismissal was retaliatory, following her raising concerns about school governance, rejecting alleged unwanted advances from school administrators, and exposing alleged corruption at the institution.
By the time of publishing this story, immigration authorities had not issued an official statement regarding Dr Stowe’s arrest or the alleged deportation plans.
Attempts to reach the Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson, Simon Mundeyi, were unsuccessful as his phone was unavailable.
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