22nd May, 2018
Government representatives, civil society organisations and experts across the globe will meet on Wednesday to devise ways of preventing mass atrocities like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
More than 200 delegates will convene for a three-day meeting under “Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes (GAAMAC)’’, a state-led network, the Ugandan government said in a statement on Monday.
“The states and civil society organisations representatives will work together to make prevention a reality at the local, national, regional and international level,” the statement said.
Participants will exchange good practice and lessons learned from ongoing experiences of prevention like early warning systems, prevention of hate speech, role of politicians.
One key feature of the meeting will be the presentation of the Africa Working Group Manual on “Best Practices on the Establishment and Management of National Mechanisms for Genocide and Mass Atrocities Prevention,” the statement said.
Similarly, the Ugandan police on Monday said it had suspended the issuance of firearms to private individuals pending an audit of such weapons in the hands of the public.
The audit has already started, Deputy Police Spokesperson, Patrick Onyango, said.
He said the police had received many applications from members of the public, who want to acquire firearms.
“Once the audit is completed, we shall review all the applications we have so far received and the owners will be informed appropriately,” he said.
Authorities said the move is part of efforts to fight organised crime in the east African country.
Government figures show that by 2016, up to 19,000 guns were being held legally by civilians and private security firms.
In 2017, the government proposed that the fees for owning a firearm be raised from less than 300 dollars to about 1,400 dollars per year.