James Rukanpana
James Rukanpana is a human rights defender and a member of Twerwaneho Listeners Club (TLC). Twerwaneho Listeners Club is a non-governmental organisation based in Fort Portal, in the Rwenzori Region of Western Uganda. TLC carries out human rights advocacy through weekly radio programmes centred on human rights education, capacity building of human rights defenders, civic education, the monitoring and documentation of human rights violations and the challenging of unlawful government actions in court. Since 2006, TLC has been working on unlawful evictions from public community land. TLC radio programmes generally focus on human rights issues with a view to holding public leaders and corporations more accountable.
The Ugandan government continues to limit freedom of expression and association with human rights defenders being subjected to threats, intimidation and judicial harassment due to their legitimate human rights work. A number of human rights organisations have reported break-ins at their offices. Particularly at risk are human rights defenders advocating for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.
