27 Jan 12 | Africa, Index Index, minipost, News and features
A Ugandan photojournalist was shot at by security forces on Tuesday as he covered their attack on the motorcade of opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Isaac Kasamani, a photojournalist with the independent Daily Monitor, said men in plainclothes shot at him from a blue police van some 10 metres away as he kneeled to take a photo of an exploding tear gas canister thrown by the agents. He wrote that the bullet narrowly missed him
20 Jan 12 | Sub-Saharan Africa
On 9 January, in a bizarre move, at least 10 radio stations, including BBC Radio, Radio France International (local relay channels), and the Italian Embassy’s security radio channel were taken off the air by the police in an on-going crackdown over the alleged illegal use of equipment and facilities belonging to state broadcaster, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC). The radio stations lease relay equipment from the state’s masts, and there is considerable murkiness about how they got access, and whether they are being paid for. It may have cost the broadcaster as much as Shs 392 million (US $163 thousand). This is all amidst the scandal and confusion of the Uganda Broadcasting Companies possibly illegal acquisition of land. Smokescreen maybe?
The police crackdown, which began last year, brings the number of stations switched off the air to 11, and occurrs amidst a general tightening up of the Museveni regime. This month another journalist, Emmanuel Opio, was allegedly beaten up, his camera confiscated and the photos from his camera deleted by a senior police officer. His case has reached the desk of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC). Additionally, the new Public Order Bill, debated in parliament before Christmas, significantly limits the rights to protest. With Museveni’s increasingly top heavy cabinet of over 70 ministers, some of the lowest annual incomes in the continent, and increasingly tighter control of the country, it’s not looking good.
05 Dec 11 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A Rawandan journalist has been shot dead at point blank range in the Ugandan capital Kampala, where he was exiled. Charles Ingabire, editor of the Inyenyeri News website, was fatally shot twice in the chest by unidentified assailants on 1 December at around 2am outside a bar in Kampala. The journalist, who was an outspoken critic of the Rwandan government, was pronounced dead at the scene. Ingabire was exiled from Rwanda in 2007, and had been threatened previously. In an attack teo months ago his computer was stolen and he was pressured to shut down Inyenyeri.
25 Nov 11 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
Unidentified assailants raided the offices of a Ugandan newspaper and killed a security guard in the early hours of Thursday morning. 80 computers, worth millions of Ugandan shillings were stolen from the Kyengera based offices of bi-weekly newspaper “Eddoboozi” and security guard Fred Mabonga was killed by the intruders. The editor of the pro-Buganda paper, Eddie Mukwaba Katende, said he could not rule out the fact that the paper may have been targeted because of its reports on corruption, politics and human rights abuses. Police are investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made.
