Latif Madoi, a prominent fashion designer was at his fashion academy on 13 May when police officers marched into the building.
To Madoi’s suprise they put him in cuffs, arresting him and four of his students. They also seized some of designer’s sewing machines and finished garments.
Madoi’s offence?
Prosecutors charged the 47-year-old with possessing “uniforms declared to be for the exclusive use” of the military and police, which is illegal under Ugandan law.
More than a month later, Madoi remains in Kasangati prison, on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala.
He is “depressed”, his lawyer George Musisi told BBC News, and having to cut off the dreadlocks he spent 17 years growing is one of the main reasons.
Haircuts are standard procedure for all inmates in Uganda but Mr Madoi’s locs were key to his Rasta identity, Mr Musisi says.
This sentiment was echoed by Bobi Wine, Uganda’s charismatic opposition leader and singer, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.
After visiting Madoi in jail, Bobi Wine told his two million followers on social media platform X that the designer’s “greatest pain was having to lose his dreadlocked hair”.
Critics are convinced Mr Madoi was locked up because he designed Bobi Wine’s signature, fire engine-red overalls.
The hashtag “#FreeLatif” has been circulating among Ugandans on social media, with the self-styled “ghetto president” weighing in.
“I publicly wear the overall that he made for me, why should he be in jail for making it?” Bobi Wine asked his X followers.
The police say that when they raided Madoi’s school, they found illegal garments including “military overalls”, “military caps” and an “army green pair of shorts”.
Since 2005, wearing military uniform has been illegal in Uganda. The government recently added red berets, which Bobi Wine and his supporters have become known for wearing, to the list of outlawed garments.
Madoi’s lawyer says he doesn’t believe the police seized illegal items from his school.
He also argues that the force should have provided him with pictures of the garments in question, but police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said that “exhibits” are only handed to their owner “after the case has been disposed of by the courts”.
Madoi was well known in Uganda even before his affiliation with Bobi Wine.
The designer has bagged a couple of African fashion awards and Ugandan newspaper the Daily Monitor called him a “revolutionary garment designer of the first degree”.
As well as Bobi Wine, Madoi has made clothes for public figures like Lucky Dube, a late South African reggae star, and Jamaican hitmaker Busy Signal.
Madoi also founded and teaches at a fashion academy – the one raided by the police last month. His ambition, he once said, was to give his students “skills to get by in life, earn enough money to do more than survive”.
His arrest coincided with a crackdown – or what police called an “intelligence-led operation” – on civilians wearing actual or lookalike military and police uniforms.
