Kawempe by-election: Journalists announce boycott of UPDF, Police events after attack on colleagues

A group of journalist bodies in Uganda have announced an immediate boycott of all activities for the Police and the UPDF following brazen attacks during the ongoing by-election in Kawempe North.

Several journalists were on Thursday either beaten or arrested by UPDF soldiers while covering the ongoing by-election.

Many of their gadgets were broken and others confiscated by UPDF soldiers.

On the other side, a couple of other journalists including Francis Isano of NBS TV have ben hospitalised while others including Abubaker Lubowa and Raymond Tamale from Nation Media Group were released with visible signs of torture.

Addressing a press briefing in Kampala, Uganda Parliament Press Association(UPPA) president,  Sam Ibanda Mugabi said they have reached a decision to boycott activities of security agencies  as a way of fighting back.

“Going forward, we think journalists need safety and rights respected but continued violation of rights is getting out of hand. With immediate effect, we are saying we shall not cover activities of security organs be it Police or the UPDF until we engage leadership of these security organs on the safety of journalists,” Ibanda said.

Moses Al Sayed Lubega, the president of the Uganda Sports Press Association (USPA) said the decision to announce a boycott has been made collectively.

“We can no longer guarantee safety of our colleagues in the field. We believe it is in the best interest of media houses and individual journalists to ensure safety. We believe this environment will no longer allow journalist partake their trade,” Lubega said.

He warned media houses and individual journalists who might be tempted to go against the boycott, noting that they will be isolated.

Emmanuel Kirunda, the secretary general for Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) said the boycott is meant to serve as a lesson to those perpetuating impunity.

“Our action has been informed by growing acts of impunity on journalists by security personnel. We are worried as impunity is at the highest in the country. When impunity takes over, it means abrogation of rule of law.  We are simply saying, enough is enough,” Kirunda said.

“We are worried this might go on up to the forthcoming election. We have to tame it before it goes out of hand.”

Kirunda demanded that all gadgets confiscated are returned and those broken are repaired.

The Executive Director of the Human Rights Network for Journalists in Uganda, Robert Ssempala said whereas it is a painful decision, it will go a long way in serving a lesson to security agencies about ensuring safety of journalists.

“This is not the kind of journalism that the Uganda Constitution envisaged. The situation has turned from worse to worst since human lives are now at stake ,”Ssempala said.

“They always say journalists are not well branded or didn’t have identification cards. This was not the case today. They always claim journalists were mistaken to be rioters but this time round, there was no rioting.”