26 Nov 13 | News and features, Politics and Society, Uganda
The government of longtime Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has been accused of intimidating journalists covering the impeachment of the lord mayor of Kampala, who is a member of an opposition political party. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Against the backdrop of the political uproar following the attempted sacking of Kampala’s lord mayor, journalists reporting the story have been summoned to give statements to the police. Observers say that the government is gagging the media by barring comments from politicians who don’t toe the official line.
Media covering the case have also been attacked. On 25 November, journalist Allan Sewanyana, who is also a councillor on the Kampala City Authority, was beaten by police as he attempted to deliver a petition calling for a court injunction against the impeachment proceedings. Journalists from different media houses were sprayed with tear gas and stopped from reporting on the chaos that erupted downtown after news of the lord mayor’s removal filtered out.
Eight months ago, the government of President Yoweri Museveni started a process of ousting the mayor of Kampala, Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, a member of the opposition Democratic Party (DP). This process led to the establishment of a tribunal, by many labelled a “kangaroo court,” where Lukwago had to defend himself against the accusation of neglect of duty levelled at him by pro-government city councillors. The tribunal found him guilty. Battle lines have been drawn: The government has moved to impeach the mayor and the opposition parties have thrown their weight behind the mayor by calling for nationwide protests.
The explosive situation has drawn coverage from the country’s media and entangled journalists. So far, two reporters covering the events have been summoned to the police to make statements. Meddie Nsereko, who works with radio station CBS FM and television station NBS TV was summoned over comments he made on his radio talk show “Kiriza oba Gaana” (“Believe it or not”). He was given stern warnings against inviting opposition politicians to speak on his show. This comes at a time when CBS FM is picking up the pieces of its 2009 closure. Back then, the government shut the broadcaster over coverage of riots that erupted after authorities stopped the Buganda King from touring parts of the country. It was out of business for over a year. With this experience still fresh in mind, CBS FM has bowed to pressure and stopped inviting opposition politicians to speak on that show.
The second journalist, Basajja Mivule of Akaboozi ku Bbiri FM, was summoned by the security chief of Kampala, also for inviting opposition politicians to his show. He was severely reprimanded. Akaboozi ku Bbiri FM is owned by Uganda’s finance minister, Maria Kiwanuka. Now Mivule has to make a choice between his professionalism or losing his job.
The government has threatened NBS TV because it recorded the “ugly scenes” that happened at the city hall and streamed them on social media. According to some sources, the “Black Mamba” — a shadowy security outfit — is said to have attacked the journalists outside the city hall and court. This same group is said to be associated with the kidnapping of presidential hopeful Kizza Besigye in 2005.
Pictures have been published of journalists and civil society members being rounded up and beaten by the police and other security groups that are not easily identified. Even ardent supporters of the system feel that things are falling apart.
Despite the official intimidation, the Ugandan public are aware of the situation. The spirit of defiance can be felt in all parts of Kampala, even with the heavy police deployment.
“What should we do? They will not allow us all to go city hall to follow the deliberations on how they are impeaching the lord mayor we elected. They never consulted us as voters, and now they are chasing all journalists away from the deliberations. Who will keep us informed on what is going on? So they want us, the voters, to remain in the dark on what is happening, and expect us to stay calm? That is impossible,” one resident of Kampala said.
Although the government has come out to deny that it is targeting journalists and that the incidents which have happened so far are isolated, no one seems to believe this. The biggest challenge for journalists however, is the lack of a well-organised body that can take the government to task when these excesses happen.
Ugandan journalists have so far failed to unify themselves. The government knows this very well, and it is taking advantage of that weakness.
This article was published on 26 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
06 Nov 13 | Africa, Digital Freedom, News and features, Uganda
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
The number of Ugandans with internet connectivity keeps on increasing, especially because of the influx of cheap handsets with internet access from China. Today, over 990,000 Ugandans have Facebook accounts. This though, is still a drop in the ocean keeping in mind that the country has a population over 35 million. By comparison, almost 20 million have access to mobile phones with SMS capabilities. The current Ugandan regime seeks to have direct control over all these vital information dissemination tools.
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), a government arm set up as a regulator of the telecommunications industry, is the government’s barking dog in this endeavour, and has often been let loose to abuse digital freedoms in the country. Among other things, a directive was issued to all telecom companies to register phone and data SIM cards they sell, capturing all details about the buyer. The government also uses the option to transfer money via mobile phones, offered by many telecom companies, to monitor activities of opposition politicians and activists. With the enactment of the Public Order Management Act (POMA) into law recently, the Ugandan police has set up several bureaus in its different departments to monitor the social media, calls and SMS of individuals from the opposition and civil society, as well as journalists and other activists. POMA is a draconian law that has been enacted to limit the movements and gatherings of people without police permission, among other harsh provisions.
Since the government of Uganda liberalised the economy in the 1990’s, several telecommunication companies and other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been offering telecom services in tandem with the international developments in that industry. Today, the biggest ISPs are the South African MTN, the French Orange, Bharti Airtel, which has now merged with Warid Telecom, and the indigenous UTL. During the riots of 2009 and 2011, UCC asked all ISPs to block emails, SMS and Facebook messages that had any political content or that mentioned names of certain government and opposition politicians. Although some protested, they had to give in or risk losing their operation licenses in the country. It should be noted too that all the telecommunication companies in the country have political godfathers high up in the echelons of the current government. With this arrangement, ISPs are easily beaten into the “correct line.”
Among the different social media channels available today like Whatsapp, Twitter and e-mails, Facebook remains one of the most widely used and fastest growing social media channel. All others are used basically by what one could term as Uganda’s elite class. The Ugandan police, on behalf of the government, recently asked Facebook to provide them with information held about all Ugandans with registered accounts – a request Facebook turned down. Many Ugandans are today able to air out their grievances with government through Facebook, and this is one of the highly monitored social media outlets by the government. Critics have used this outlet to discuss issues with the public, and the regime is not happy with it. The government manoeuvres clearly indicate that it would very much love to have total control of the social media channels, but it is hampered by the fact that all firms controlling these channels are abroad and out of its reach and patronage.
Take the case of the now famous Tom Voltaire Okwalinga (TVO), a Ugandan blogger who is also very active on Facebook. He has written extensively about the abuses of government, and he is one individual the Ugandan government would pay any price to identify and apprehend. Despite the government’s efforts to identify him and the number of security operatives that have been deployed to apprehend this individual, TVO has developed a big following on Facebook, usually commenting on his exposés.
His case shows how, in the nutshell, the Ugandan government is trying to gain an upper hand in controlling and curbing digital freedoms in the country.
This article was originally posted on 6 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
04 Oct 13 | Africa, News and features, Uganda
A scene from a music video by Ugandan singer Nnabbi Omukazi.
Ugandan artists have for a long time been able to read the public mood in the country and have taken note of it in their plays and songs.
nder the military dictatorship of Idi Amin, a few brave artists expressed themselves through music and drama. Plays that were critical of the Amin regime were written and performed. Several of the authors were killed or forced into exile.
During the early years of President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, musicians, choreographers and playwrights promoted the new government through their works for bringing back stability after the overthrow of Obote and Lutwa regimes. The general public was full of praises for the new regime and artists tapped into that feeling.
However, as the early optimism waned, many artists became more critical. These artists have been censored, paid off or even deported, delivering big blows to artistic freedom of expression in Uganda in the process.
Nnabbi Omukazi composed a song in which she claimed to have had a dream where a dead politician told her that she did not die from cocaine, but that she had been poisoned.
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It was believed to be about Cerinah Nebanda, a young, vocal and critical member of parliament who died early this year. The government quickly told the public it was from a cocaine overdose, but her family and some members of parliament were not convinced by this explanation. They decided to hire a pathologist to take body samples of the deceased to South Africa to ascertain the cause of death. The pathologist was intercepted by security en-route to the airport and detained, which compounded the family’s suspicion that the MP had been poisoned because of her critical stance on several government positions. For composing that song, Police interrogated Nnabbi, and her song was banned from the airwaves.
Another artist, Matthias Walukagga, composed the song Tuli bakoowu (We are tired) in which he indirectly hints at the president’s overstay in power. In one verse, the artist asks; “When will the old man also declare that he is tired.” This song was banned on airwaves, but people still buy the CD’s and play it.
One of the biggest Ugandan artists, Bobi Wine aka “Ghetto President” wrote a song criticizing the way small traders in Kampala were being mistreated by the city authorities. In his song Tugambire ku Jennifer (Tell Jennifer to stop harassing us) Bobi attacks Jennifer Musisi, the Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority, for not caring about the plight of the poor and only protecting the interests of the rich. Responding to Bobi’s song, Musisi first dismissed it as one without consequence. However, when she realised the pressure the song was creating from the poor city dwellers, she invited Bobi to ceasefire talks. He also walked away with a fat contract to promote city activities starting with the Kampala Carnival 2013, taking place on 6 October 2013.
Patronage does not stop with politicians, it extends to almost all spheres of Ugandan society. Several other performing artists have been given fat contracts from State House (the President’s residence) to work for the presidency in different areas. In fact today, one will see a bus full of artists going to State House on invitation from the President to discuss “issues of national importance.”
Richard Kaweesa and Isaac Rucibigango, both smart and intelligent performing artists composed the song “You want another Rap”, which President Museveni used to woo young voters in the 2011 elections. This song went viral on social media and it worked in the president’s favor. The two artists were handsomely paid by the presidency. Again in 2012 when Uganda was marking 50 years of independence, Kaweesa was given another deal from State House to compose the Jubilee song. This earned him a reported 600 million shillings (US Dollars 235,300).
The same trend can be seen with comedians, as several have specialised in imitating big politicians. Segujja Museveni has perfected the art of mimicking President Museveni and has on several occasions been invited to perform for him. At his first performance before the president, he laughed so hard he had to wipe away tears. It was the first time the nation saw the president have such a hearty laugh. Since then, Segujja’s career has been on a meteoric rise.
As for dramatic artists; they are still reluctant to freely express themselves because of the potential consequences. However, they keep on making references to the political, economical and social spheres of Uganda in their plays. One artist that did this was British-born theatre producer David Cecil. He was deported from Uganda in February 2013 after being accused of staging a play promoting homosexuality. This was at a time when the government of Uganda was up in arms against anyone who seemed not to have a problem with homosexuality.
Most artists have decided to play it safe by keeping away from controversial issues, mainly political, that affect society. Sarah Zawedde, a musician says that the biggest threats to artistic freedom in Uganda are from the cultural, religious and political spheres.
24 Sep 13 | News and features, Uganda
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
In May this year, the Ugandan government closed two newspapers. The crime The Monitor and The Red Pepper newspapers committed was publishing a letter by the now renegade former Coordinator of Security Services, General David Sejusa, in which he claimed that President Yoweri Museveni was grooming his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba to succeed him. In the same letter, General Sejusa claimed that there was a plot to assassinate all army officers and senior government officials who are against the president’s succession plan.
The letter had been written to the Internal Security Organization (ISO) boss to investigate the allegations, but was leaked to the media. Despite this, the government went ahead and closed the two media houses which had run the story for two weeks. They were only allowed to reopen after meetings with the minister of internal affairs, where the editors were told that government would not hesitate to close the media houses for good if they did not stop “reporting irresponsibly.” These are the only privately owned dailies in the country.
This was not The Monitor’s first run-in with the government. At its inception in the early 1990’s, it was the only privately owned daily that competed with the government-owned New Vision. New Vision towed the government line as a mouthpiece and enjoyed all the advertising deals from all government ministries and agencies. The Monitor was totally denied all government adverts, with the intention of killing it off because it was the only paper that was questioning government decisions on different issues. It was the readership plus some support from private businesses that kept it alive. The African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) has also criticised the paper and its sister FM station, KFM, for bending under government pressure. This came after it pulled down a critical story about the president, claiming that it had been badly written.
Print media is not alone in being targeted. During the 2009 riots that rocked Uganda, the government closed five privately owned FM radio stations reporting on it. Four of them were reopened after six weeks, after they had publicly apologised to the president and promised never to do that again. Central Broadcasting Services (CBS), however, was closed for over a year. It took a lot of pleading to the president from the media, church, monarchy and other wealthy and influential people to reopen CBS. Since it went back on air, most of the political discussions were bumped off air and some individuals who government felt were anti-establishment were barred from appearing as panelists on the different radio talk shows.
To add to the problem, the government also directly controls a wide range of media. New Vision is run under the government-owned Vision Group and is building up a powerful media conglomerate with four other newspapers publishing in local languages, three television stations, three radio stations in the capital Kampala, plus other local radio stations in at least all the other regions of the country. All these are strictly government mouthpieces, and management will not allow opposition politicians or activists to use these platforms to reach the masses. The national broadcaster, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), which runs the national television station and a multitude of radio stations in the countryside, is also tightly under government control.
Furthermore, while Uganda is seen in the East African region as having the best and less repressive media legislation, the government has of late tended to make amendments to the existing media laws to make them restrictive. The African Media Barometer (AMB), which is made up of leading media practitioners in the country from private and government-owned media houses, as well as lawyers and representatives from civil society, reported in 2012 that there are a few positive developments in Uganda with the licensing of more print and electronic media outlets. However, AMB also notes that the media freedom declines ahead of elections as the government grows increasingly nervous and attempts to clamp down on freed speech. Private media houses, especially radio stations, also practice self-censorship in order not to annoy the powers that be.
Ibrahim Bisika from the government’s Media Centre says the friction between media and government arises out of “editorial mismanagement” where media houses publish stories that bring them in direct confrontation with government. Moses Serwanga, a director at the Uganda Media Development Foundation (UMDF) says that media freedoms in the country are getting curtailed because of the creeping political dictatorship where political leaders do not want to leave office.
