At least 14 journalists, who were reporting on Wine’s return to Uganda from an overseas trip on Thursday, were briefly detained and several were also assaulted and had their equipment damaged or confiscated by the officers, according to media reports.
“It is a great shame that Uganda’s security sector repeatedly treat reporting on the political opposition as a criminal offense,” CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo, said on Friday. “Police should drop any pending investigations into journalists arrested while covering Bobi Wine’s return home, investigate reports that security personnel assaulted journalists, and ensure that those responsible are held to account.”
Wine competed against Uganda’s long-serving President Yoweri Museveni in elections in 2021, and at least 50 people died in protests over the pop star-turned-politician’s arrest ahead of that vote.
After citing security concerns over plans by Wine’s party to hold a one-million strong welcome march, security personnel arrested Wine upon arrival at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport and drove him home, where he said he was being held under house arrest.
Journalists said they were targeted by both police officers and people they believed were military personnel, according to a statement by the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda. The Ugandan press freedom group said some journalists recorded statements with the police “though the charges [against them] remained unclear.”
]]>On July 20, unidentified men punched and kicked at least six journalists at the headquarters of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) in the capital city of Kampala and stole several of their mobile phones, according to media reports and five of the journalists, who spoke to CPJ.
In a separate incident that day, John Xerxes Ogulei, a reporter with the privately owned Teso Broadcasting Services, told CPJ that a police officer insulted him and slapped his hand, knocking his phone and tripod to the ground and breaking them. The Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a local rights group, tweeted a photograph of his broken tripod.
Ogulei told CPJ he was among journalists waiting to cover a meeting held by Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi in the eastern city of Soroti when the officer accused them of harming the government’s image through their coverage and assaulted him.
“It is unacceptable that violence has become an everyday hazard for journalists on the political beat in Uganda,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “The attacks on John Xerxes Ogulei and the journalists attending an FDC news conference in Kampala should be investigated impartially and those responsible held to account. The journalists should also be compensated for damaged and stolen equipment.”
Violence began at the headquarters of the FDC—Uganda’s biggest opposition party until the 2021 elections—after party chairperson Wasswa Birigwa invited journalists to a briefing but security guards barred them from entering the compound, according to media reports and the journalists who spoke to CPJ.
Birigwa said he was held hostage at the FDC headquarters amid a power struggle inside the party. Following an hours-long standoff, about 10 people believed to be Birigwa supporters arrived, demanding his release and banging on the gate. Another group of men exited the party headquarters and started beating and punching the journalists and the Birigwa supporters, according to news reports and the journalists who spoke to CPJ.
Charles Katabalwa, a reporter with the Catholic station Radio Sapientia, told CPJ that one assailant stole his phone while another kicked him in the back. Moses Waiswa, a reporter with the privately owned Busoga One FM radio station, told CPJ that one man slapped him, punched him in the face, and stole his phone. Joseph Balikuddembe of the privately owned station CBS FM told CPJ that he was punched in the head, sustained a cut lip, and his phone was stolen.
Arnold Lawrence Kinsambwe, a reporter with the Christian station BTM TV and Radio Sapientia, told CPJ that he fell into a ditch while dodging a punch, and a man snatched his phone as he was trying to climb out. Another kicked him in the back and as he was running away.
Nowamani Ainembabazi, an intern with the state-owned Urban TV, was punched in the mouth twice, according to its sister company New Vision and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. She told CPJ that the assailants snatched a mobile phone from her hands, and stole her bag which contained a second phone and money. She said that her lip was split, requiring stiches, and she has lost two teeth as a result of the attack. Ainembabazi told CPJ on July 31 that she needed further medical treatment for her injuries.
Multiple media reports said that George William Katoloba of the privately owned Namirembe FM was also attacked and had his phone stolen, but did not provide specific information about that incident. When contacted by CPJ, Katoloba declined to comment, citing safety concerns.
FDC President Patrick Amuriat referred CPJ to party communications official Norman Turyatemba for comment. In a phone interview on July 31, Turyatemba said the attack was “regrettable,” the party planned to compensate the journalists for their stolen devices, and was negotiating compensation for the journalists’ medical care.
Birigwa told CPJ that he was “disgusted” by the incident and apologized to journalists for the attack. Both Birigwa and Turyatemba said that the party would carry out internal investigations and hold those responsible to account.
In a statement sent to CPJ via messaging app on July 31, Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said that investigations into the incident were ongoing and that police were analyzing CCTV footage and tracking stolen phones, but no arrests had been made.
National police spokesperson Fred Enanga did not respond to a request for comment sent via text message, including about the assault on Ogulei in Soroti.
CPJ has frequently documented attacks on journalists covering politics in Uganda. Last month, four reporters covering local elections in Uganda were also assaulted.
]]>“People will tell us their stories and ask us not to put them out there, not until it is safer,” Kuchu Times deputy director, Ruth Muganzi, told CPJ. “We are meant to ensure LGBTI voices are heard but we are gagged. This is the pain we suffer since the law was passed.”
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, enacted in May, punishes consensual same-sex relations with life imprisonment, entrenching restrictions in a 1950 penal code. Those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality” for same-sex relations with minors, the elderly, or the disabled, face the death penalty. There are reports that the law has sparked “increased vigilantism” against LGBTQ+ Ugandans, and that some have been forced into exile or hiding.
Kuchu Times still posts on its website. But its annual magazine, Bombastic, is on hold in part because the team is grappling with how to print a publication that mostly features personal accounts without endangering sources.
The law has potential ramifications for the press beyond issues with sourcing. Anyone convicted of printing, broadcasting, or distributing material “promoting or encouraging homosexuality” could be imprisoned for 20 years. Free speech advocates fear that this provision poses a risk to the media.
“This law, in so many ways, is an anti-publication law. The broad terms in which it talks about promoting homosexuality can be interpreted to mean anything,” said Nicholas Opiyo, a human rights activist and one of the lawyers in a petition challenging the law’s constitutionality. “Covering a story that depicts the community in a positive light could be interpreted to mean promoting homosexuality.”
Companies found to be promoting homosexuality face license revocations or fines of up to one billion Ugandan shillings (US$269,000). It is a financial penalty akin to “strangulation,” said Robert Ssempala, executive director of Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a press rights group.
For Kuchu Times, which derives its name from the slang that queer Ugandans use to identify themselves, the implications of these provisions are clear — and grave. But there are signs that the law may have a chilling effect on news organizations that don’t solely focus on the LGBTQ+ community, too.
CPJ interviewed 13 journalists about the new law. Most requested anonymity, fearing professional and social repercussions of talking about a law they perceive to have popular support, including within the media industry. Nine told CPJ that while they have not cut back their reporting, and their newsrooms still cover the LGBTQ+ community, the law is affecting the way they work.
Two Ugandan reporters contributing to international media say that they’ve had trouble finding LGBTQ+ Ugandans to interview about the law’s impact on access to HIV treatment, and about incidents of persecution. A third journalist has decided to forgo a byline on some LGBTQ+ coverage “out of an abundance of caution.” A newspaper editor and a television reporter told CPJ that company lawyers have been brought into editorial discussions to advise on what copy might breach the law.
“Are you promoting homosexuality if you give a story about a gay person a lot of space in your paper? Or are you just reporting? Should you give these stories lower prominence?” the newspaper editor said. “It is a thin line; journalists might not know where it is until they’ve crossed it.”
Fox Odoi-Oyweloyo, a ruling party politician who voted against the law and is now petitioning against it in court, told CPJ that he recently declined four broadcast interview invitations after journalists called in advance and asked him to tone down his views once on air. Ssempala said that in two instances, broadcast journalists warned him not to “go there” when he broached the law’s press freedom implications.
Three of the journalists who spoke to CPJ also expressed concern that given Uganda’s spotty press freedom record, which includes physical attacks on journalists, arrests, and the use of criminal libel charges against the press, the law might be used as a pretext to target critical media.
“It is a trap that you eventually walk into. You might be punished not because anyone is necessarily outraged because you interviewed an LGBTQ person, but because they are unhappy with your [other] coverage,” said Lydia Namubiru, news editor of the Pan-African weekly e-paper, The Continent.
Authorities in Uganda have previously sanctioned the media for its coverage of LGBTQ+ issues. In 2004, regulators fined a radio station US$1,000 for depicting homosexuality as an “acceptable way of life” and in 2007, a radio show host was suspended after interviewing a lesbian activist. Bombastic has also faced threats.
“History has shown us it has happened. It is not inconceivable that the same will happen again,” said Opiyo.
Namubiru told CPJ she also worries that the media will “not grow better” at reporting on the LGBTQ+ community while the law makes it difficult or dangerous to publish their voices.
Ugandan media have a record of homophobic, even inflammatory, coverage of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2010, a now-defunct newspaper called for the hanging of homosexuals. One of those named in the publication, gay rights activist David Kato, was bludgeoned to death a few months later. In 2014 the Red Pepper tabloid exposed the names of people it called the “200 top homos.”
In court filings responding to petitions challenging the law, Uganda’s attorney general Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the law does not infringe on human rights, including freedom of expression. The attorney general said that the law is “intended to protect the traditional family” and is “unambiguous and purposeful.”
Some journalists share similar opinions. A broadcast reporter based in eastern Uganda feels empowered to investigate sexual crimes by a section of the law requiring the public to report “reasonable suspicion” of the “offense of homosexuality,” the reporter told CPJ.
CPJ’s emails to the office of Attorney General Kiwanuka were unanswered. CPJ called Asuman Basalirwa, the opposition legislator who authored the law, and sent requests for comment via his parliamentary email address and text message but did not receive any replies.
Other African journalists may also soon face freedom of expression concerns surrounding anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Ghana is considering a law which carries the potential for censorship. In Kenya, one lawmaker has called for a ban on “any discussions, publications and spread of news on same-sex relationships” while another has drafted a law similar to Uganda’s. Cameroon’s media regulator has threatened to suspend programs “promoting homosexual practices.”
As Ugandans wait on the courts to decide the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, Muganzi remains defiant. This law, she said, is just another battle for the country’s LGBTQ+ community and Kuchu Times will not stay away from the frontlines.
“We must keep speaking up so that Ugandans have a wider picture of LGBTI people. We must keep saying: We are not a myth. We are not an import of the West. We are your friends, your neighbors, your brothers, and your sisters,” she said. “As a lesbian woman, I do not have the privilege to remain afraid and silent.”
]]>At about 7 a.m., a man in plainclothes confronted broadcast reporter Eddy Enuru as he prepared to begin live coverage of the elections from the Bukedea Township Polling Station, according to Enuru, who works for the private broadcaster NBS and is the region’s bureau chief, and Simon Peter Emwamu, another journalist who witnessed the incident.
The man grabbed Enuru’s tripod and a phone he planned to use to film, and slapped the journalist several times across his face and neck, according to Enuru and Emwamu, who works with the Daily Monitor, a newspaper owned by NTV Uganda’s parent company. The assailant did not identify himself.
About 20 minutes later, the attacker drove away from the scene after giving Enuru’s phone and tripod to police officers, who returned the devices to the journalist. Enuru told CPJ that he suffered bruising to his chin and neck, received a medical check-up at a local hospital, and filed a complaint about the assault at the Bukedea Central Police Station.
Separately, a group of about 10 people who identified themselves as security personnel but were dressed in plain clothes told Emwamu to keep his distance from the polling station, saying that they were holding a security meeting.
When Emwamu identified himself as a reporter and asked why they were holding a security meeting at a polling station, one man confiscated his phone and his camera and held it for a few minutes before returning it.
Emwamu and Enuru told CPJ that they believed the attacks were meant to stop them from covering alleged irregularities in the election. The elections, in which a ruling party candidate emerged victorious, were marred by violence against opposition candidates and allegations of ballot-stuffing.
In a separate incident on the morning of June 14, unidentified men robbed two local radio journalists, Continental FM reporter John Bosco Ojojo and Mama Bukedea FM reporter George Emuron, who were also covering the elections, according to Ojojo and the HRNJ-U statement.
Ojojo told CPJ that he and Emuron, who also contributes to the Daily Monitor, were riding together on a motorcycle after making a reporting stop at a polling station at the Tamula Primary School, when the riders of a second motorcycle hailed them to stop.
“We thought they knew us, or they wanted to ask us a question. When we stopped one of them approached us and said: ‘your life or your gadgets, which one are you giving us?’” Ojojo said.
The two journalists handed over a laptop, audio recorder, and two smartphones. The assailants’ faces were covered with masks and their motorcycle’s registration plates were also covered, Ojojo said. The journalists reported the robbery at the Bukedea Central Police Station later that day.
In a June 14 interview with NTV-Uganda, regional police spokesperson Oscar Ageca said that police were investigating Enuru’s complaint. In a phone interview on July 5, Ageca told CPJ that investigations were ongoing into the assault on Enuru and robbery of Ojojo and Emuron, but said the inquiry was frustrated because the suspects were not known to the journalists. Ageca told CPJ that police were still trying to trace the stolen laptop and smartphones.
Local media reported that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on June 26 ordered a presidential anti-corruption unit to investigate allegations of irregularities around the Bukedea by-election and to “take action” if any wrongdoing was identified.
]]>On Sunday, March 5, authorities arrested Arinaitwe while he was reporting at a boarding school in the central district of Wakiso, according to a statement shared with CPJ by Kiiza & Mugisha Advocates, a law firm representing the journalist, and tweets from the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a local press rights organization. Arinaitwe was on assignment with the weekly publication The Continent, which is distributed via messaging apps including WhatsApp, according to those sources and the outlet’s news editor, Lydia Namubiru, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Authorities held Arinaitwe until Monday, when he was released on police bond, according to those sources and a police document reviewed by CPJ.
On Thursday, authorities formally charged Arinaitwe with criminal trespass with the intent to steal, detained him, and adjourned his case until March 14, according to his lawyers’ statement, Namubiru, and Culton Scovia Nakamya, a journalist who observed the court proceedings and spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
“Ugandan journalist Andrew Arinaitwe’s ongoing detention and prosecution raises serious questions about the lengths authorities will go to restrict coverage of sensitive topics,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Arinaitwe should be released immediately, all charges against him must be dropped, and he should be allowed to continue his reporting without undue interference or further intimidation.”
At the time of his arrest, Arinaitwe was reporting on allegations of sexual abuse by teachers in Ugandan boarding schools, including at Kings College Budo, and had gone to the institution to seek comment from its principal after failing to reach him on the phone, according to his lawyers’ statement and Namubiru.
Arinaitwe entered the school without being stopped or questioned by a security guard at its gate, but then the principal, John Fred Kazibwe, accused the journalist of illegally accessing the institution and reported him to military officers who were on the campus, who in turn handed him over to the police, Namubiru told CPJ.
In a statement sent to CPJ via messaging app, Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson Patrick Onyango, in whose jurisdiction Wakiso district falls, accused Arinaitwe of failing to use “normal procedures” to access the school and of “sneak[ing] into the college” to improperly interview students.
Before releasing him Monday, police confiscated Arinaitwe’s phone and laptop, according to Namubiru and the lawyers’ statement.
At the Nsangi Magistrates Court on Thursday, authorities formally charged Arinaitwe and then adjourned the hearing after state prosecutors argued that they needed time to verify the addresses of his sureties, persons who guarantee that he will abide by bail orders, according to those sources and Nakamya.
Under Uganda’s penal code, criminal trespass is a misdemeanor that carries a prison term of one year upon conviction.
Contacted via messaging app, Kazibwe told CPJ that he could not comment while the case was before the court.
Uganda’s national police spokesperson, Fred Enanga, did not respond to queries sent by CPJ via messaging app.
]]>“The Ugandan constitutional court’s decision to nullify provisions of a law criminalizing ‘offensive communication’ is a great relief, as authorities have repeatedly used this legal tool as a cudgel against critical journalism and commentary,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative. “Authorities must reform other problematic sections of the Computer Misuse Act that could be used to criminalize the work of the press and ensure that all of the country’s laws are compatible with the standards of freedom of speech in a democratic society.”
The court found Section 25, which imposed prison terms of up to a year for anyone using electronic communication to disturb the peace, to be “vague, overly broad and ambiguous,” according to a copy of the judgment reviewed by CPJ. The court ordered that enforcement of Section 25 be stopped, according to the judgment.
CPJ has documented authorities’ use of Section 25 to justify the detention of journalists.
Other sections of the Computer Misuse Act are subject to separate litigation, including amendments introduced in 2022 that criminalized the dissemination of information without consent, “misuse of social media,” sending “malicious information,” and “creat(ing) divisions,” according to a copy of the amendments and news reports.
]]>On September 8, Uganda’s Parliament passed the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which would impose criminal penalties and fines when a computer is used to commit offenses including the unauthorized dissemination of information, ridiculing or demeaning individuals, promoting hostility among groups of people, publishing “malicious” information, and the “misuse of social media,” according to an official record of the parliamentary debate, a report by Parliament’s Information, Communication Technology and National Guidance committee, and media reports.
The bill proposes amendments to a 2011 law, the Computer Misuse Act, which already contains provisions that have been used to target journalists and critics, as CPJ has documented. The new Computer Misuse bill was passed despite criticism by Ugandan press rights organizations and digital rights groups, according to media reports.
Under Article 91 of Uganda’s constitution, the president has 30 days to either assent or reject bills passed by parliament.
“Ugandan legislators have taken the wrong turn in attempting to make an already problematic law even worse. If this bill becomes law, it will only add to the arsenal that authorities use to target critical commentators and punish independent media,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative. “President Yoweri Museveni should reject the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022. He should send it back to Parliament with a request that legislators amend the existing law in a manner that promotes, rather than undermines, press freedom.”
The bill, tabled in July by Muhammad Nsereko, an independent member of parliament, proposes imprisonment of 10 years and/or a fine of up to 15 million Ugandan shillings (US$3,898) for people convicted of accessing or intercepting information without authorization or sharing “any information about or that relates to another person” without consent. This provision would undermine investigative journalism and make it difficult for the press to hold officials to account, said press and digital rights advocates, as well as legal experts, in submissions to Parliament’s ICT committee before the bill was passed, according to media reports as well as parliamentary records of these proceedings.
Hate speech, which under the proposed law includes information likely to “ridicule, degrade or demean another person, group of persons, a tribe, an ethnicity, a religion or gender,” to “promote hostility” against them, or to “create divisions” among them, would be punishable with up to seven years in prison and/or a fine of 15 million shillings (US$3,898). Those convicted of sharing “malicious information about or relating to any person through a computer” would also face up to seven years in prison.
Conviction for “misuse of social media,” defined as publishing or distributing information “prohibited under the laws of Uganda or using disguised or false identity” on various online platforms, including Twitter and TikTok, would carry a prison term of up to five years and/or a fine of up to 10 million shillings (US$2,595). Parliament passed this provision, which was not included in the original draft bill without public consultation, according to an analysis by the Ugandan rights group the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and a dissenting parliamentary opinion by opposition parliamentarian Gorreth Namugga, a member of the ICT committee.
CPJ emails to the clerk of Uganda’s parliament, Speaker Anita Annet Among, and Nsereko did not receive responses. Calls to Among and Nsereko, on phone numbers listed on Parliament’s website, did not connect, and messages sent to these numbers returned delivery errors.
When reached over the telephone, an official in Parliament’s public affairs office referred CPJ to Joseph Sabiti, Among’s press secretary. In a telephone conversation on September 26, Sabiti said he would address CPJ’s queries the following day. He did not respond to queries sent via messaging application or answer CPJ’s phone calls on September 27 and September 28.
]]>The four journalists are among a group of suspects recently arrested for their alleged connection to the May 14 murder of businessman Shaban Malole, according to news reports.
The journalists were named as suspects in that investigation because they had contacted Malole and his family members on May 14 as part of their reporting on a land dispute involving the businessman, according to a report by the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-U), a local press rights group that is providing legal support to the journalists, and people familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ.
Authorities arrested Nabatanzi in June and detained the other three reporters in July; as of Friday, July 22, Nabatanzi and Kiyumba are under investigation but have not been charged with any crime, while Mutyaba and Isabirye were charged with murder and conspiracy to murder and are held in Kirinya Prison in the eastern city of Jinja, according to the HRNJ-U and those media reports.
“Ugandan authorities should release journalists Ivan Mutyaba and Denis Isabirye, and ensure that members of the press do not face jail time for simply doing their jobs,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative. “Mutyaba and Isabirye, in addition to journalists Jacklin Nabatanzi and Muganza Julius Kiyumba, are being drawn into a criminal investigation simply because they were covering someone who was later killed. Authorities should ensure that the journalists can work safely and free from legal harassment.”
Authorities arrested Nabatanzi, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster Kiira FM, on June 11 on the pretense that she possessed a stolen phone, the journalist told CPJ in a phone interview. During questioning, officers confiscated her phone but only questioned her about Malole’s killing, she said.
“I was crying. I was totally confused,” said Nabatanzi, who was eight months pregnant at the time of the arrest. “They wanted me to tell them something I didn’t know, I didn’t see.”
Authorities released her without charge on June 13, on the condition that she report to police as directed, according to the journalist and a police document published by HRNJ-U on Twitter. Officers had not returned her phone as of July 22, she said.
Authorities arrested Kiyumba, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster City FM 96, on July 4 and released him on bond, which requires him to appear at the station whenever directed by police, on July 6, according to the journalist and City FM 96 station manager Richard Kiria, both of whom spoke to CPJ via messaging app
Kiyumba was released without charge, but police are continuing to investigate him for alleged murder, conspiracy to murder, and concealing information about a murder, according to Kiria.
Authorities arrested Isabirye, a reporter for the privately owned broadcaster Baba FM, on July 2, and summoned Mutyaba, a reporter for the privately owned broadcaster Busoga One Radio 90.6 FM, for questioning on July 4, according to Busoga One manager Innocent Anyole and HRNJ-U legal program officer Diana Nandudu, both of whom spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
At a court hearing on July 6, both journalists were charged with murder and conspiracy to murder, and then were sent to prison, according to those sources, Kiria, and news reports. If convicted, murder carries the death penalty and conspiracy carries up to 14 years imprisonment, according to the penal code.
Mutyaba and Isabirye were not able to enter a plea during that hearing, as the court did not have the jurisdiction to adjudicate capital offenses and was only holding the hearing to announce the charges, according to the state-owned newspaper News Vision.
The pair are due back in court for a bail hearing on July 25, Anyole told CPJ.
The four journalists traveled from Jinja to the disputed land site in Kamuli district on May 14, spoke to several of Malole’s family members, and tried but failed to interview Malole, who declined to speak to them, according to Kiyumba and Nabatanzi.
That evening, after the journalists had returned to Jinja, Malole was shot and killed in his home, according to those sources and news reports.
Abbey Mwase, a local politician and relative of Malole, provided the vehicle the journalists used and accompanied them on their reporting trip; he was detained after police alleged that his vehicle had been used to transport weapons, according to news reports, Anyole, Kiria, and Nabatanzi.
Nabatanzi and Kiyumba denied that the vehicle had been used to transport weapons.
When CPJ called Kiira regional police spokesperson James Mubi, he said he could not comment while the case remained before the court.
In a phone interview with CPJ on Friday, Irene Nakimbugwe, deputy spokesperson of Uganda’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, said authorities had charged Mutyaba and Isabirye because there was evidence linking them to the murder, and not because of their journalism.
Nakimbugwe said it was up to the courts to adjudicate the evidence and added that she could not comment on the specifics of the case amid ongoing investigations.
[Editors’ note: This article has been changed in its image caption to correctly identify Nabatanzi’s mother, and in its ninth paragraph to characterize the conditions of Kiyumba’s release from custody.]
]]>Kitatta, a photojournalist and reporter, has been in hiding and unable to work since March 11, he told CPJ via messaging app, after a group of 12 men thought to be plain-clothed government security officers were seen allegedly surveilling the offices of the Vision Group, a Kampala-based state-owned media company that publishes Kitatta’s work in its New Vision and Bukedde newspapers, according to a report by New Vision and a statement by the local press rights group, the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda.
Since February 24, Kitatta has reported two other incidents of being followed and attacked by people he believed to be security officers, he told CPJ. Kitatta believes the security personnel planned to detain him following a February 22 incident in which a police officer attached to the elite Presidential Protection Guard, which provides security to high-ranking government officials and delegates, kicked him while he was covering an opposition protest in Kampala outside the home of Anita Among, who has since been elected speaker of parliament, according to media reports.
The attack was widely publicized, and Kitatta told CPJ that a picture of the incident was published on the front page in the Daily Monitor, a large privately owned newspaper. Kitatta also wrote a first-person account that was published by New Vision.
“It is a shame that a Ugandan journalist has been forced to go into hiding out of fear simply because he spoke out about being attacked while on assignment,” said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should hold the police officer who kicked Lawrence Kitattta on February 22 accountable and provide guarantees that the journalist will be allowed to continue his work safely.”
In the February 22 incident, Kitatta heard the police officer making disparaging comments about the media and saying he did not like journalists before covering his face with a mask, chasing protesters, and assaulting Kitatta, the journalist told CPJ.
In a tweet, Asan Kasingye, an assistant inspector general and chief political commissar of the Uganda police force, accused Kitatta of attempting to grab the police officer’s weapon and suggested the officer was only trying to protect his gun. Kitatta told CPJ that when the officer went to kick him, he put out his arm in front of his body in a self-defensive reflex, not to grab the police officer’s gun.
Kitatta first suspected he was being surveilled on February 24, when a man in civilian clothes approached the journalist while he was walking back to the Vision Group following a lunch break, Kitatta told CPJ. The man called him by name but walked away when Kitatta responded.
“I think he was trying to confirm it was me, to confirm my identity,” Kitatta said.
On the evening of February 28, when he was riding his motorcycle home from the Vision Group offices, he noticed a man riding another motorcycle without a license plate following him, Kitatta told CPJ. The man followed him for about two miles (three kilometers), then tried to run him off the road. Kitatta told CPJ that he stopped and waited for the other man to drive off before taking an alternative route home.
On March 1, accompanied by a Vision Group lawyer, Kitatta reported both incidents to police at the Jinja Road station, in Kampala, according to a report published by the newspaper, which CPJ reviewed.
Kitatta told CPJ that he believed that the group of men outside the Vision Group building on March 11 incident was connected to these two earlier incidents. In its reporting, New Vision said that some of the men, riding motorcycles without license plates, watched the building’s exit while another group waited in an idling car.
When one of the men was asked by Vision staff what they were doing outside the Vision Group offices, the man claimed to be looking to hire space for a conference — a service the media company does not provide. Kitatta told CPJ that at least one of the men approached a Vision Group security officer, asking for Kitatta’s whereabouts.
Kitatta told CPJ that he was warned by his colleagues that there were men looking for him, so he hid in the Vision Group offices throughout the afternoon until they left.
In a telephone call on March 31, Kasingye said he had no comment on the case and referred CPJ to police spokesperson Fred Enanga and the Criminal Investigations Department spokesperson Charles Twiine for comment.
Twiine asked CPJ to visit his office for a response to queries sent via messaging application and did not respond to a further request to communicate his comments either via email or WhatsApp. Enanga did not answer multiple calls and messages from CPJ requesting comment. CPJ’s March 26 email to the police was also unanswered.
]]>On the afternoon of March 10, a group of armed police and military officers raided the offices of The Alternative Digitalk, arresting the nine and confiscating equipment, including cameras, laptops, and books, according to media reports, a statement by the local press rights group Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-U), as well as police and court documents reviewed by CPJ.
The journalists arrested that day are Norman Tumuhimbise, The Alternative Digitalk’s executive director who is also an activist and a published author; programs director Arnold Mukose; TV host Faridah Bikobere; producer Jeremiah Mukiibi; presenters Lilian Luwedde, Teddy Teangle Nabukeera, Tumusiime Kato, and Rogers Tulyahabwe; and an intern, Jacob Jeje Wabyona, according to Tumuhimbise’s brother Innocent Ainebyona, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and the HRNJ-U statement.
On March 15 and 16, seven of the journalists were released on police bond, but are still under investigation on charges of sedition and cyberstalking, according to human rights lawyer Eron Kiiza and the HRNJ-U-appointed lawyer Geoffrey Turyamusima, both of whom are working on the case and spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Two journalists, Tumuhimbise and Bikobere, remain in jail, and were charged with cyberstalking and “offensive communication,” during a court hearing in the capital Kampala on March 16, according to Turyamusima and court documents reviewed by CPJ. During the hearing, Bikobere and Tumuhimbise told the court they had been severely physically abused while in state custody, Ainebyona and Turyamusima told CPJ.
“Authorities should unconditionally release Norman Tumuhimbise and Faridah Bikobere, drop all charges against them, end all investigations against other The Alternative Digitalk journalists, and return their confiscated equipment. Allegations that these journalists have been severely physically abused should be investigated credibly, holding anyone responsible to account,” said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa representative Muthoki Mumo. “President Yoweri Museveni, whose name has been invoked in these proceedings, should also declare that he is against arbitrary detentions of the press and condemn acts of abuse by security personnel.”
Cyberstalking and “offensive communication” can carry prison terms of up to five and two years respectively under Uganda’s Computer Misuse law. Sedition can carry up to seven years, according to the penal code.
Kiiza and Ainebyona told CPJ that The Alternative Digitalk is an offshoot of Alternative Uganda, an activist group headed by Tumuhimbise and of which Ainebyona is also a member, which campaigns for better governance in Uganda. On its social media accounts, the group defines itself as a “non partisan (sic) and non-violent social movement” campaigning for “youth led change.”
CPJ’s review of The Alternative Uganda’s YouTube channel, where it has about 2,700 followers, and Facebook page, with over 24,300 followers, shows that it publishes The Alternative Digitalk’s programming, such as interviews, including with politicians and government officials, analysis of current affairs as well as entertainment and lifestyle programming.
In the court documents, police allege the offenses were committed by the journalists between January 2020 and March 9, 2022, against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in the form of content published by The Alternative Digitalk about two of Tumuhimbisi’s recently published books. The books, “The Komanyoko Politics: Unsowing the Mustard Seed” and “Liars and Accomplices,”are sharply critical of the Museveni government, according to media reports, Kiiza, and CPJ’s review of “The Komanyoko Politics.” [Editor’s note: Komanyoko is a vulgar insult originally from Kiswahili.]
In several YouTube and Facebook posts in late February and early March made by The Alternative Uganda, which streams The Alternative Digitalk’s content, The Alternative Digitalk advertised Tumuhimbise’s books and announced the planned March 30 launch event in Kampala. On March 1, the outlet published an hour-long interview with a retired judge who wrote the foreword to “The Komanyoko Politics.”
In that book, excerpts of which CPJ reviewed, Tumuhimbise’s commentary describes Uganda’s political culture as “vulgar” and full of “malice, fights, insults, greed.” He also alleges that the president “only tells the truth by mistake” and criticizes government appointments for Museveni’s family, including his son, Lieutenant General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, and wife, Janet Museveni.
Copies of this book were among those confiscated by the security officers who raided the media outlet’s offices, according to a police search certificate, a document outlining how the search was carried out and listing those who witnessed it, reviewed by CPJ. The officers also confiscated four cameras, microphones, several laptops, hard disks, as well as CDs and a company vehicle, according to that same document.
On March 16 and 17, when seven of the journalists were released on bond from the police’s Special Investigation Division in Kireka, a suburb of Kampala, two of them were limping, Ainebyona told CPJ. CPJ was unable to immediately communicate with the released journalists, whose phones were confiscated when they were arrested.
During the March 16 court hearing, Bikobere said she needed medical attention because she had been beaten by officers and was passing blood in her urine, according to Turyamusima. A video clip posted on YouTube shows part of Bikobere’s testimony in which she says she feels pain in her stomach, back, and chest; has bruises all over her body; and offers to “undress” so that her injuries can be put on record.
Tumuhimbise also told the court that he had been beaten, saying he was punched in the head and forced to drink and unknown substance, according Ainebyona and Turyamusima. Both journalists were remanded to Luzira Prison in Kampala until their next hearing on March 21.
Uganda military spokesperson Brigadier General Felix Kulayigye told CPJ by phone that the military’s involvement in the raid on The Alternative Digitalk was in support of a police operation and referred CPJ to the police for comment. Kulayigye declined to answer questions on allegations of torture, saying the journalists had not been in the army’s custody.
Calls and text messages to Uganda police spokesperson Fred Enanga and President Museveni’s senior press secretary Nabusayi Lindah Wamboka were unanswered.
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