Today, OFAC designated Johnson Byabashaija (Byabashaija), Commissioner General of the Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) since 2005. During that period, members of the UPS have engaged in torture and other serious human rights abuse against prisoners held within UPS facilities. Prisoners have reported being tortured and beaten by UPS staff and by fellow prisoners at the direction of UPS staff. Members of vulnerable groups, including government critics and members of Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community, have been beaten and held without access to legal counsel; for example, in a 2020 case, the UPS denied a group of LGBTQI+ persons access to their lawyers and members of the group reportedly endured physical abuse, including a forced anal examination and scalding.
Byabashaija is being designated for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of an entity, including any government entity, that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to the leader’s or official’s tenure pursuant to E.O. 13818.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
