This archive report was first published on 16 August 2019.
On Friday, Uganda denied a report that employees of Chinese telecom giant Huawei had aided a domestic spying operation targeting pop star turned opposition icon Bobi Wine.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Huawei technicians helped Ugandan authorities use spyware to intercept Wine's Skype and WhatsApp communications.
Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, became a lawmaker in 2017 and is preparing to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda's 2021 presidential election.
Ugandan presidential spokesman Don Wanyama told AFP that the claims were 'totally false' and questioned why Wine would be a target for spying.
Wanyama described the allegations as 'a continuation of the trade war between China and US.'
The Wall Street Journal reported that Huawei employees helped Zambia spy on opposition bloggers, but said it did not find evidence of spying by or on behalf of Beijing in Africa.
Wine, who has been detained multiple times since entering politics, told AFP that the spying claims were 'not surprising' but warned Museveni that underhanded efforts to stop his political rise would fail.
