The wife of Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who was detained after Christmas, has started legal action against the country's police chiefs - demanding that she be able to see him.

Eva Basima is suing the special forces command chief and police inspector-general.

She says she has not seen her husband, a critic of veteran President Yoweri Museveni, since he was arrested by heavily armed special forces officers on 28 December at their home.

On Tuesday, a court ordered the police to release Rukirabashaija unconditionally, but he remains in custody.

Robert Kyagulanyi, an opposition leader and singer better known by his stage name Bobi Wine, has said the failure to free the author is a crime against humanity.

The police accuse Rukirabashaija of using social media to "abuse and belittle" the president and his son, army commander Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

In a tweet he had described the general as "obese" and said "the Musevenis have imposed enormous suffering on this country".

Rukirabashaija won last year's Pen Pinter Prize's International Writer of Courage award

He is best known for The Greedy Barbarian, a satirical novel which describes high-level corruption in a fictional country, and Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous, an account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention in 2020.

Ugandan police routinely disregard court orders and often re-arrest suspects released on bail.