Reporting from Kampala, Uganda, Megan K. Stack writes:

Plainclothes thugs frog-marching a radio commentator from the microphone mid-broadcast. An opposition activist dying after reportedly being barricaded in his house, which was then set on fire. Security forces raiding a powerful independent media company, cutting electricity and imposing a monthlong closure.

A reign of terror grips Uganda. Specifically, the reign of Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the country’s belligerent and erratic military chief, who also happens to be the only son of Yoweri Museveni, the octogenarian autocrat who’s ruled Uganda for four decades. Critics of General Kainerugaba, who recently announced his intention to become Uganda’s next president, risk finding themselves in the “basement,” his nickname for the torture chambers he brags about on social media.

Ugandans have discovered that, increasingly, there is nowhere to hide. Civic life here is defined by thickening webs of state surveillance built with foreign help. Chinese cameras and facial-recognition software monitor the streets; Russian radio frequency chips implanted in license plates have been tracking cars in real time; Israeli software plunders the private contents of phones. Technology has created an intrusive eye that never blinks — a stealthy weapon for dictators keen to stifle speech and thought.

Welcome to our menacing new world, a place where authoritarians — established and aspiring alike — enjoy tolerance from the international community; wield cheaper, quieter and far more powerful surveillance tools at home; and reach across borders to help one another hang on to power.

Africa has become a testing ground for all of this. Authoritarianism is spreading on the continent, where Freedom House’s 2026 report found that only 10 percent of people now live in countries classified as “free,” a dismal statistic outdone only by the Middle East.

China has quietly fueled this political hardening. With unparalleled trade reach, a voracious appetite for natural resources and a compelling authoritarian model, Beijing has deepened its economic and political presence across Africa. Along the way, it has exported many of the technologies that the Communist Party uses for political and social control at home. African governments have spent at least $2 billion on the Chinese artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance systems that hound dissidents from Mozambique to Zimbabwe to the Republic of Congo.

China is not the only one. Israeli spyware such as the notorious Pegasus piracy software, which can use a phone to spy on its owner, has been snapped up by rulers around the world. And companies from the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and other European states have all exported surveillance technologies to Africa and other regions. Such tools have sometimes been used to target opposition figures, journalists and activists. [Continue reading…]