Ugandan security forces detained a number of youths in downtown Kampala who were partaking in a banned rally against what the protesters say are uncontrolled debasement and human rights abuses by the nation’s rulers.

The nonconformists were holding placards and yelling slogans censuring corruption.

A police representative was not immediately available to say the number of people that had been detained.

Authorities banned the planned dissent, refering to intelligence they said showed criminally minded youths might hijack it in order to plunder and vandalize.

Soldiers and police have been deployed around the parliament building and in the centre of the Ugandan capital with the intent of deterring any protesters.

All roads to the parliament were closed off, with only legislators and other parliamentary staff having access, and a Ugandan television station showed military armoured personnel carriers manning the area.

Ugandans with businesses close to parliament encountered difficulty getting to their premises.

“It’s like a war zone,” Edwin Mugisha, who works in Kampala, told Reuters, referring to the military patrols.

Police sealed off the offices of Uganda’s biggest opposition party, blaming it for assembling nonconformist, and confined some party officials, including its legislators. The party denied it was organizing the march, yet said it supported it.

Opposition leaders and rights activists say misappropriation and abuse of government funds are widespread in Uganda. They have long blamed President Yoweri Museveni of neglecting to indict degenerate senior officials who are politically faithful to him.

Museveni has over and over denied supporting corruption and says whenever there is adequate proof, guilty parties including legislators and even ministers are prosecuted.