Uganda

2010

  
Beketov must be transported to trial in an ambulance while his attackers walk free. (Foundation in Support of Mikhail Beketov)

Help journalists in need: An appeal

Mikhail Beketov is lucky to be alive, although I’m sure there are days when he doesn’t think so. On November 13, 2008, the environmental reporter who campaigned against a highway that would have destroyed a forest in Khimki, a town outside Moscow, was beaten nearly to death by men with metal bars. The attackers made…

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Uganda lifts ban on CBS, staff celebrates with caution

Full, normal broadcasting of the Ugandan Central Broadcasting Service (CBS)–owned by Uganda’s powerful traditional Buganda kingdom–resumed Monday after nearly 14 months of silence. While CBS staff welcomed their return to work, many recounted a tough year and questioned the nature of the station’s re-opening. 

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Former CBS journalists Ndiwalana Kiwanuka, left, Richard Wasswa and Joesph Kafumbe. (CPJ)

Ugandan station still closed, an ill omen for election

More than a year has passed since the government-influenced Broadcasting Council summarily closed the popular Central Broadcasting Service, or CBS. The council closed the station in September 2009 as riots were erupting in response to the government’s decision to block the traditional Buganda king from attending a youth celebration north of the capital, Kampala. Its…

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New Vision

Second journalist killed in three days in Uganda

New York, September 15, 2010–Unidentified assailants beat and killed news presenter Dickson Ssentongo Monday morning on his way to work at Prime Radio in Mukono district, central Uganda. Assailants beat Ssentongo with metal bars and dragged him into a nearby cassava field, local journalists told CPJ. He was the second journalist murdered in three days…

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Freelance journalist beaten to death in Uganda

Nairobi, September 13, 2010–Motorcycle taxi drivers beat freelance journalist Paul Kiggundu to death Saturday evening, local journalists told CPJ. The drivers, commonly known as boda-boda, attacked Kiggundu while he was filming some of them demolishing a house in a town outside of Kalisizio, southwest Uganda.

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Journalists at the Monitor cheer the court's ruling to strike down sedition. (Monitor)

Ugandan media celebrates, fights on after sedition ruling

With surprise and relief, Ugandan journalists, who routinely face the police’s “media crimes” unit, welcomed a partial victory for press freedom on Wednesday. The country’s constitutional court had ruled that criminal sedition was unconstitutional. Even so, there was a consensus that more legal press battles lie ahead.  

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Uganda strikes down criminal sedition

New York, August 26, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday’s ruling by Uganda’s Constitutional Court declaring the country’s criminal sedition offense, which has been used to prosecute journalists, unconstitutional.

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Ugandan online editor accused of sedition

Nairobi, August 4, 2010—Police accused the online editor of The Ugandan Record, Timothy Kalyegira, of sedition Tuesday and searched his house today, Kalyegira told the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Media Offences Department commissioner of police, Simon Kuteesa, interrogated Kalyegira about two online articles that speculated as to whether the Ugandan government were involved in the July…

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Museveni at the African Union summit. (AP/Stephen Wandera)

From 9/11 to 7/11, balancing security, liberty

Ugandan President Museveni urged his peers at this week’s African Union summit to unite in the battle against terrorism in the aftermath of the terrible 7/11 bombings in Kampala. Security measures pursued by Ugandan authorities after the twin bombings, however, have left some Ugandans and other East African residents wary. East African journalists were among…

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Police at the scene of one of Sunday's terrorist attacks. (Reuters)

Journalist among dead in Uganda terror attacks

Since the beginning of Somalia’s Islamist extremist insurgency, the Al-Shabaab militia has targeted journalists and others that it considers opposed to its goals. Al-Shabaab is now reaching beyond Somalia’s borders, as the group claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks Sunday evening that rocked Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and left an estimated 74 people dead, including radio…

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2010