In Uganda, a pop star takes on a president, at his peril

In his red beret and jumpsuit the Ugandan pop star Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known as Bobi Wine, leads cheering campaigners down a street, punching the air and waving the national flag.

That image has defined the unlikely new political phenomenon and possibly now put him in danger as an opposition figure taking on one of Africa's longest-serving leaders.

Once considered a marijuana-loving crooner, the 36-year-old "ghetto child" is a new member of parliament who urges his countrymen to stand up against what he calls a failing government.

His "Freedom" video opens with him singing behind bars: "We are fed up with those who oppress our lives."
His lawyer, Medard Sseggona, told reporters after yesterday's closed-door hearing that his client had been so "brutalized he cannot walk, he cannot stand, he can only sit with difficulty ... It is hard to say whether he understands this and that."
"It is good to imagine things, but it is better to work toward that imagination," he told the local broadcaster NBS afterward while speaking about his presidential ambitions. "But it does not take only me. It takes all of us."
"The only critical thing is how he responds to the brutality of the state. How does he respond after the physical impact of the state on his body? We are waiting."