Mirjam Blaak

Mirjam Blaak (born 1956) is the Netherlands-born Ugandan Ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the EU. She is a member of the National Resistance Movement, the party led by Yoweri Museveni that has been in power since 1986. She married NRM fighter Ronald Batta (1950–2004), and they had two sons. Before Museveni came to power, she helped Janet Museveni and her children get asylum in Sweden. She has defended Ugandan human rights violations and the presence of safe houses in Uganda.

Blaak earned a Master of Laws degree at Utrecht University before working as a Protection Officer with UNHCR in Nairobi. When she became Deputy Ambassador to Brussels in 2003, she voluntarily relinquished her Dutch citizenship to become a Ugandan citizen.

Controversy
Blaak has downplayed the use of safe houses for human rights violation in Uganda: "I know there are safe houses, but I don't know if people are tortured there. I think safe houses exist everywhere, not just in Uganda".

At the International Court of Justice, where she represented Uganda, she denied that human rights violations were a daily occurrence in Uganda. The Ugandan house and office of the whistleblower were raided shortly after.

When Muhammad Ssegirinya was admitted to the Alexandra Medical Center for treatment of his torture wounds, she told a journalist "What he is being treated for does not indicate torture".