Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye is in intensive care in hospital, his wife and medical sources said on Thursday, as the UN blasted a wider crackdown on dissent.
Besigye, 70, has been in custody and facing treason charges over an alleged plot against veteran President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.
At a court appearance on Wednesday, Besigye rejected state-appointed lawyers. He was expressing anger at his own representatives being refused when he collapsed.
His wife Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, wrote on X: "He has been admitted to the ICU at Mulago Hospital (in Kampala).
"He is unconscious, unable to speak, and unresponsive even to a pain stimulus."
A spokeswoman for the hospital, Gladys Baligonzaki Kajura, confirmed to AFP that Besigye had been admitted.
"He is at the intensive care unit. He was admitted last evening and his condition is being managed," she added, without elaborating.
A medical source said, under condition of anonymity, that Besigye was taken to hospital on Wednesday evening and said he was in a "critical condition and unresponsive".
Besigye, a former personal physician to Museveni, has been in the government's crosshairs since he joined the opposition more than 25 years ago.
He was abducted in neighbouring Kenya in 2024 and reappeared in Uganda, where he was brought before a military tribunal until the case was transferred to a civilian court.
Before he collapsed, one of his defence lawyers -- the former mayor of Kampala Erias Lukwago -- was arrested while the other, former justice minister Martha Karua, was banned from entering the country.
- UN 'appalled' -
Uganda has imposed a widening crackdown on opposition figures, lawyers and independent media in recent months.
On Thursday, the Ugandan courts again refused to release Lukwago on bail. He was abducted from his home by the army then charged with failing to report treason.
In early July, Lukwago likened his continued detention to "a death sentence" as he had chronic health problems affecting notably his lungs and spine.
The judge at the latest bail hearing justified a refusal to free him because Lukwago did not have a certificate from his doctor stating that he cannot be treated in prison.
Besigye has been hospitalised three times since he was taken into custody. He was admitted briefly in February 2025 after a hunger strike and again earlier this year.
His wife has repeatedly criticised his detention conditions, describing them as inhumane and alleging a plot to kill him.
In Geneva, UN rights chief Volker Turk said the crackdown on dissent was twinned with a gradual erosion of the rule of law, increased military involvement in civilian institutions, and shrinking civic space.
"I am appalled that the authorities are increasingly targeting any form of dissent, and deepening restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of all those living in Uganda," he said in a statement.
"Those who dare to speak out are silenced."
Since Museveni, 81, was re-elected for a seventh term in January, repression has increased against all those perceived to oppose the government, the statement from Turk's office said.
According to their information, at least 50 opposition leaders and supporters, five human rights defenders and five journalists have been subjected to human rights violations since then, including enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment.
Ten leading civil society organisations have been suspended since January, while others have been closely scrutinised and, at times, subjected to harassment, it added.
The UN rights office said it had also received information about increased military involvement in civilian institutions, while some media outlets have been forced to close temporarily.
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