{"id":5994,"date":"2026-05-19T21:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/home\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law"},"modified":"2026-05-20T00:27:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:27:37","slug":"uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law","title":{"rendered":"Uganda President Signs Foreign Influence Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press. <\/strong> <\/span>The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed a controversial law aimed at reducing foreign influence, following a softening of its provisions by parliament that had faced criticism from financial institutions for potentially hindering remittances and development work.<\/p>\n<p>The law criminalizes promoting &#8220;foreign interests against the interests of Uganda&#8221; and prohibits anyone working for foreign entities from implementing any policy without government approval.<\/p>\n<p>Human rights organizations have stated that this vague wording will allow the government to criminalize nearly any form of political opposition. The government has accused its critics of exaggerating the law&#8217;s impact.<\/p>\n<p>Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, has consistently condemned foreign influence in Uganda, accusing his local political opponents of receiving funding from abroad.<\/p>\n<p>His office announced late Sunday that he signed the &#8220;Sovereignty Protection&#8221; bill, which was approved by parliament on May 5. Penalties for violations include imprisonment of up to 10 years and hefty fines.<\/p>\n<p>The final legislation softened many of the previous provisions criticized by economic institutions. One provision, which required any Ugandan receiving money from abroad to register as a foreign agent and disclose incoming funds, was amended to apply only to individuals receiving funds for political purposes that serve foreign interests.<\/p>\n<p>Remittances from Ugandans living abroad are a significant source of foreign currency for this East African nation. The central bank governor, Michael Atingi-Ego, warned last month that the law could reduce financial flows to Uganda and threaten to deplete foreign currency reserves, describing the situation as an &#8220;economic disaster for our country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The World Bank also criticized the previous proposal, stating that it could expose a wide range of &#8220;routine developmental activities&#8221; to criminal liability. Neither the central bank nor the World Bank has commented on the amendments made to the original bill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Africa<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed a controversial law aimed at reducing foreign influence, following a softening of its provisions by parliament that had faced criticism from financial institutions for potentially hindering remittances and development work. The law criminalizes promoting &#8220;foreign interests against the interests of Uganda&#8221; and prohibits anyone working for foreign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":5993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[120],"class_list":{"0":"post-5994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-policy","8":"tag-africa"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Uganda President Signs Foreign Influence Law - Africa Press English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed a controversial law aimed at reducing foreign influence,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Uganda President Signs Foreign Influence Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed a controversial law aimed at reducing foreign influence,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Africa Press English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-19T21:05:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T00:27:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/africa-home\/sites\/69\/2026\/05\/sm_1779236441.62607.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"770\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"513\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Uganda President Signs Foreign Influence Law\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-19T21:05:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-20T00:27:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\"},\"wordCount\":311,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/africa-home\/sites\/69\/2026\/05\/sm_1779236441.62607.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/policy\/uganda-president-signs-foreign-influence-law\",\"name\":\"Uganda President Signs Foreign Influence Law - 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