In 1988...

We have no intention of introducing censorship...’, Prime Minister Samson Kisekka declared in a speech in March 1987 to the National Press Club in Washington DC, ‘but we intend to resist journalistic injustice by the journalists who publish falsehood, exaggerations and create sensationalism which may be intended to destabilize’.

Since the NRM came to power in 1986, a new diversity in the newspaper industry has developed. An encouraging number of newspapers and journals are being published… There is no formal system of censorship operating in Uganda today. A diversity of issues and problems can be discussed in the media. However, the President and members of his government have warned the press to refrain from ‘exaggerated and false’ reporting. Read more...

In 2008...

Freedom of expression in Uganda in 1987 had to be assessed in the context of recent terrible human rights abuses and national trauma. Twenty years later, national security is still cited by figures in government as good reason to exert repressive authority over the media, non-governmental organisations, political groups and individuals. While Ugandan nationals have been involved in internal and external conflicts recently, with the Lords Resistance Army in the north of the country only agreeing a ceasefire in 2006, there are substantial grounds for saying that certain acts which suppress free expression are not justified by this history.

In many respects, freedom of expression in Uganda has improved. The media in Uganda are largely privately owned and relatively free and pluralist, offering serious analysis and criticism from a variety of viewpoints. Uganda also has a relatively successful AIDS control programme which has required a significant amount of detailed information to be communicated to the public – an indication that information and communication have a positive role to play in the future and that Ugandan civil society is already involved.

The right to freedom of information and access to information is, to a certain extent, protected in Uganda. There has been a commitment to liberalisation of the media, increasing pluralism and diversity of viewpoints and ownership. At the same time, there has been an improvement in standards of professionalism and the quality of the journalism. While these improvements have been held back by repressive government actions, the independence of the media is increasing and the implementation of self-regulation and better training of journalists should ensure that progress continues.

An important feature has been ongoing legal reform that seeks to articulate rights set out in the Constitution. The abolition of the crime of publishing false news may anticipate wider legal reforms protecting journalists, but other reforms such as the 2005 Access to Information Act did not meet expectations and have not yet enhanced freedom of expression and the rule of law.

Legal and Regulatory Framework

The constitutional and legal framework to protect freedom of expression and access to information is improving. The right to freedom of expression is codified in both the Constitution and law. The media are pluralist, diverse in content and ownership, able to represent many viewpoints and serve the public interest to an extent. Journalists are able to work more freely than in some neighbouring countries and are effectively represented by the Ugandan Journalists’ Association, which highlights and addresses any abuses of press freedom. However, the Access to Information Act, passed in 2005, has failed to realise its potential to greatly improve transparency and accountability in government. Not only is the implementation of the Act stalled but the Act also falls short of international standards for information access since it is markedly abstract and vague; some sections of the Act also greatly limit access to information.

The 1995 Ugandan Constitution guarantees the rights of freedom of expression in Article 29 and access to information in Article 41. However, there are significant infringements of these rights at present and a more specific legal grounding is needed to support them. Until amendments are made to the legal framework, it is likely that the present abuses of these rights will continue and become further entrenched in Ugandan government and institutions.

The regulatory framework protecting freedom of expression is matched by that which potentially restricts it. While the Constitution, the Electronic Media Act, the Press and Journalists Act and the Access to Information Act all seek to define, albeit somewhat vaguely, freedom of expression and regulation of the media, the Penal Code and Terrorism Act contradict these provisions by significantly restricting the exercise of those freedoms. The Penal Code and Terrorism Act criminalise the publication of seditious material, where the threat of sedition is defined in the most vague and broad terms.

Section 50 of the Penal Code provides for the criminal prosecution of defamation and the threat or use of this legislation was often used in the past to deter critical reporting on the activities of government. However, in 2004, with the reform of libel laws, the article was declared ‘unconstitutional’.

Political Expression

‘The Monitor Group, a major private media group, had its website and KFM radio station blocked during the elections after having received warnings from four separate State authorities not to publish the election results.’

There are often attacks on or threats against the political opposition, their supporters and critical media and journalists. Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986, and until 2005 Uganda was a one-party State. The sole multi-party elections in the last 25 years took place in February 2006. Although by no means a disaster, the elections were not entirely free and fair. During the elections the press was criticised and harassed by politicians unhappy with media coverage. Kizza Besigye, the main rival to President Museveni and leader of the Forum for Democratic Change, was intimidated in the run-up to the elections, along with some of his supporters, according to the national press. Kizza Besigye subsequently faced politically motivated charges of rape and terrorism and further harassment from the security forces during his trial.

The Monitor Group, a major private media group, had its website and KFM radio station blocked during the elections after having received warnings from four separate State authorities not to publish the election results.

Ugandans, therefore, face considerable obstacles in exercising their rights to freedom of expression, access to information and freedom of the press and media, particularly in the context of elections. There is also government interference with the judiciary, which corrupts the rule of law and thus undermines all civil liberties.

News Media

During the election period in 2006, the government established a new Media Centre to regulate journalist accreditation instead of the Media Council. The immediate consequence was that many journalists – foreign journalists in particular – found it difficult to get proper accreditation and the accreditation process appeared to be significantly more politicised, with the overt involvement of the Information Ministry. A further ramification was the diminished status of the Media Council and independent regulatory bodies in general. This is a damaging trend as the government already tends to use the courts rather than the Media Council to pursue grievances, undermining the Council and reinforcing the use of repressive (occasionally criminal) legislation and legal action to control the media.

There are four major national daily newspapers in Uganda of which The New Vision, the State-owned paper, has the largest circulation (about 35,000). It also publishes four regional subsidiary papers in local languages. The Daily Monitor and The Observer are the largest privately owned newspapers, the former having a circulation of about 25,000. Although the standard of reporting in the print media and the neutrality of the papers is good, low levels of literacy and the costs of newspapers restrict their impact. Even so, the print media have given a significant voice to varying political views, and the government has previously sought to limit the free expression of opinion in newspapers through law suits, threats and restrictions on publication and reporters. Even the State-owned The New Vision is neither averse to criticising the government nor immune from government criticism.

Radio is the medium with the greatest audience in Uganda, partly due to high levels of illiteracy (estimated at approximately 30 per cent in 2006), infrastructure and costs. The number of radio networks and the diversity of ownership have increased greatly since the liberalisation of radio broadcasting in 1986, and now there are almost 100 registered broadcasting stations. Although there is a continuation of the trend towards free expression in the radio sector, this sector also faces government interference; a government attempt to close the frequently critical Ebimeeza station in 2002 failed after a popular defence of the station. The temporary shutting down of stations such as Radio Kyoga Veritas FM for broadcasting programmes ‘unfavourable’ to the government, and KFM for broadcasting election results, has contributed to an environment of guarded criticism and self-censorship.

The reach of television is limited by lack of infrastructure, high costs and low television ownership. The Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is responsible for producing State-owned radio and television broadcasts and, since the formation of the UBC, the State channel has had increased editorial independence. But there is still an element of interference with this sector and in early 2007 the State broadcaster UBC switched off the transmission of a private station, NTV, on the grounds that it was ‘too heavy’ for the mast. In fact, there are nine other broadcasters operating on the mast, and blocking the transmission of one station does not reduce the overall weight.

New Technologies

Landline phone networks are generally unreliable in Uganda and the number of mobile phone users is steadily increasing. Growth in Internet usage is slower due to high costs and lack of training in computer use. Roughly five per cent of the population were (monthly) Internet users by the end of 2006. Freedom of expression is generally maintained over the Internet, although in 2006 there was a case involving blocked access to an anti-government website, on the orders of the government itself.

Repression of Media Workers

The government has pursued many prosecutions against both journalists and politicians, imprisoning the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, on various unfounded allegations of treason, terrorism and rape. Reporters Without Borders reported that during Kizza Besigye’s trial, privately owned radio stations were threatened with closure if they dared cover the trial. The threat was justified on the grounds that radio stations had the potential to foment disorder in the country.

Some cases of disappearances and torture of media workers have been reported. Chief sub-editor of The Daily Monitor, Mr Ogen Kevin Aliro, sustained serious injury including a fractured collar bone and shoulder blade after being attacked by six men in 1998. The assault was believed to be in response to his published article reporting on the re-emergence of torture used within public bodies such as the Department of Military Intelligence. More recent assaults include those in March 2007 against journalist Chris Ahimbisibwe and photographer Richard Semakula, who work for the newspaper New Vision, and who were both roughed up in the courts for covering the trial of suspected rebels.

Andrew Mwenda, then political editor of The Daily Monitor, was arrested, charged with sedition and his trial was suspended in late 2005. He submitted a petition to the Constitutional Court of Uganda challenging the constitutionality of the sedition law. KFM radio station, on which he hosted a programme, was temporarily closed prior to his arrest after broadcasting a debate about the death of the former Sudanese rebel leader, John Garang, in which the Ugandan government was criticised. Mwenda is currently a John Knight Fellow at Stanford University.

Media Censorship

The Broadcasting Council was established in 1998 as one of the first of a growing number of institutions used to regulate the media after liberalisation. Perhaps the most important is the Media Council, set up as a relatively independent expert body for regulating the media. In 2004, however, the Minister of Information overruled the Media Council’s supposed independence when he instructed it to revoke the broadcasting licences of broadcasters who ‘abuse the President’. The regime of licensing can be used in this way to exert editorial control over apparently independent media.

The Uganda Journalist Safety Committee highlighted the inequitable media coverage of the 2006 elections, reporting that 43 per cent of the election coverage in the week before the poll was for the incumbent President; the opposition candidate received only six per cent. With such a significant bias in the exposure of candidates and their campaigns, the democratic credentials of both the government and the media are diminished. However, the media, in particular the radio networks, were able to carry many debates and phone-in shows which examined some of the issues at stake, and the various broadcasters and newspapers represented many different political views.

The war with the Lord’s Resistance Army led to many specific restrictions on journalists. Reporting from the north of Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army is active, is restricted by the government, despite clear public interest in events there, and concern over serious human rights abuses taking place. Despite the ceasefire agreed in 2006, the government continues to use the fragility of peace in Uganda to justify repression of information.

Legislation criminalising sedition is widely used to restrict the activities of journalists, using loose terms such as ‘abusive language which could incite the public’. The media therefore have to operate in an intimidating atmosphere and a principal consequence of this is self-censorship by many journalists. The law criminalises vocal opinions that might otherwise be considered wholly legitimate expositions of a particular viewpoint or, at worst, a civil offence or something to be dealt with by an independent, self-regulatory body rather than by the criminal justice system.

Art Censorship

In 2005 the Media Council, followed by the government, banned the screening of a documentary about the play Vagina Monologues – a clear restriction of freedom in a cultural context. Other forms of cultural censorship are said to take place on a regular basis. More positively, the film industry has an annual training programme for East African filmmakers which in 2007 was held in Munyonyo, Uganda.

Other Targets of Censorship

The views of certain groups within Uganda are under-represented. Both the Muslim population and women claim that they face exclusion from the public arena. Homosexuality is still very much a taboo subject. The recent suspension of a radio presenter from Capital FM for his liberal views on homosexuality was cause for worry for the gay community. The Ethics and Integrity Minister (formerly the Minister of Information), made verbal threats including ‘we know them; we have details of who they are’, since when some people are reported to have gone into hiding.