The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, suspended five members of the Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party for three consecutive sittings.
The suspended MPs include; Joyce Bagala (Mityana District Woman MP), Francis Zaake (Mityana MP), Frank Kabuye (Kassanda South), Derrick Nyeko (Makindye East MP) and Betty Nambooze (Mukono Municipality).
The suspension of the group followed the legislators’ failure to agree on whether to play a video which allegedly showed acts of brutality meted against NUP party leader Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine and some of his supporters.
The video, which was tendered in by the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, (LoP), Mathias Mpuuga, also reportedly showed the unfair arrests of Bobi Wine and his supporters.
Trouble started after the State minister for Internal Affairs Gen David Muhoozi, presented a statement about the incidents involving security officials, NUP president and some NUP MPs in Kampala Metropolitan Area and Kayunga on October 5 and 9.
In response to the statement, Mpuuga asked that the video be played before he could make his statement and his request was granted by Tayebwa, however, the video did not play, something that was initially blamed on technical issues.
The Deputy Speaker again asked the rest of the MPs to proceed with reactions but some of the legislators, mainly Opposition, refused to comply.
Tayebwa then suspended session for more than 10 minutes and during the break, a section of leaders at Parliament, including officials from the office of the clerk, Mpuuga and other MPs led by shadow Attorney General Wilfred Niwagaba, were engrossed in a closed-door meeting allegedly over the same.
Upon resumption, there was no clear position on the matter and Tayebwa suggested that the decision on whether to play the video or not be put to a vote and the majority voted against it and the Deputy Speaker ruled that it would not be played.
This triggered anger among some of the legislators, some of whom shouted unclear statements.
It is then that Tayebwa decided to suspend the five MPs before immediately adjourning the plenary.
