(San Francisco, June 30, 2025) – The Ugandan High Court should dismiss charges against eleven climate activists detained for peaceful opposition to the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), Climate Rights International said today. The next hearing is on July 2, at which time the activists will have been detained without bail for 70 days in substandard conditions.  

The activists, now widely known as the KCB11, were arrested on April 23, 2025, after attempting to deliver a letter to Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) in Kampala. The letter raised concerns about the bank’s potential role in financing EACOP. KCB officials allegedly lured the activists into the basement of the bank by promising them a meeting with a bank official. However, police then met them in the basement and arrested them.  

“It’s hard to imagine a more vivid picture of corporate-state collusion than activists being led into a trap and arrested for trying to share their concerns about a fossil fuel project characterized by rights and environmental harms,” said Brad Adams, Executive Director at Climate Rights International. “The Ugandan government must immediately and unconditionally release the KCB11 and stop using the courts as a weapon against peaceful dissent.”  

After their arrest, the eleven were charged with criminal trespass. Since then, they have been denied bail multiple times, despite the fact that they were engaged in an internationally protected act of peaceful protest. The KCB11 are being detained at Luzira Prison, where recent reports have highlighted severe overcrowding, denial of adequate medical care, and even temporary water outages. 

Court hearings for the KCB11 have been riddled with irregularities and delays. A scheduled bail hearing on May 27 was postponed due to a state event and the absence of the magistrate. On June 12, another bail hearing was postponed due to the unexplained removal of the case file by an unidentified individual. During this same hearing, the magistrate refused to proceed and postponed the matter again.  

These arrests are not an isolated incident, but part of a wider pattern of escalating repression against environmental and human rights defenders in Uganda, particularly those who speak out against megaprojects like EACOP. As documented in Climate Rights International’s 2024 report on the EACOP-related Kingfisher oil development project, “They Don’t Want People to Stay Here,” Ugandan authorities have increasingly relied on arbitrary detention, criminalization, and surveillance to silence dissent. The detention of the KCB11 is the latest example of this practice.  

“The KCB11 have committed no crime,” said Adams. “This is targeted harassment and seems intended to send a chilling message to every EACOP activist in Uganda. KCB Bank and the owners of EACOP should publicly call on Ugandan authorities to end all criminal prosecutions for peaceful protests.” 

EACOP is a 1,443-kilometer heated pipeline planned to run from two major oil fields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. The Tilenga field is operated by TotalEnergies, while the Kingfisher field is operated by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). Each is jointly owned by TotalEnergies, CNOOC, and the state-owned Uganda National Oil Company. The entire project has drawn widespread condemnation for its devastating impacts on the environment and human rights. If completed, it would displace large populations, threaten local environments, and generate 379 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 25 years, with annual peak emissions surpassing the combined totals of Uganda and Tanzania. 

Activists and affected communities have called for the cancellation of EACOP, citing illegal land takings, inadequate compensation, violence, intimidation, labor rights violations, water pollution, and the massive emissions that will result from the sale of the oil and gas.

The #StopEACOP campaign has been at the forefront of this movement, mobilizing local resistance, publishing critical work, and pressuring financial institutions to cut ties with the project. The KCB11 are part of these efforts, which include demands that banks and insurers withdraw from the project. Their letter to KCB called on the bank to stop financing EACOP and instead uphold human rights standards and corporate accountability. The effort has had a significant impact, with over 40 banks and financial institutions committing not to fund the project. Following the release of “They Don’t Want People to Stay Here,” CRI sent letters to 34 financial institutions, urging them to cut ties with EACOP and associated actors, and calling on them to comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  

President Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, is now seeking an unprecedented seventh term amid escalating crackdowns on dissent. His administration has jailed journalists, restricted political opposition, and clamped down on civil society.  

“President Museveni thinks he’s building a pipeline into the future, but he’s really building a monument to repression, corruption, and climate failure,” said Adams. “The extended detention of the KCB11 for trying to deliver a letter criticizing a fossil fuel project embodies the repression at the heart of his autocratic rule. When peaceful protesters are sent to prison for months without trial, it’s not just Uganda’s climate that’s in danger — it is also its hopes for democracy.”