Uganda / Africa

  
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni speaks during a meeting of members of the African Union during the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 2017, at U.N headquarters. Ugandan authorities raided the newspaper Red Pepper after it published an article that said Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni was planning to overthrow Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. (AP/Julie Jacobson)

Uganda detains newspaper editors, directors, holds them without charge

Nairobi, November 22, 2017–Ugandan authorities should immediately release eight employees of the national newspaper Red Pepper who are being held in government detention without charge, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Read More ›

Ugandans read a copy of the newspaper Red Pepper in Kampala, in this February 25, 2014, file photo. (AP/Rebecca Vassie)

Newspaper editor interrogated in Uganda

Nairobi, June 21, 2017–Ugandan authorities should cease investigation and intimidation of privately-owned daily newspaper Red Pepper editor Ben Byarabaha and four other publications, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Read More ›

Academic Stella Nyanzi defends herself in a Kampala court on charges stemming from her critical remarks online about Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, April 10, 2017. Journalist Gertrude Uwitware has faced threats, abduction, and assault for her writing in support of Nyanzi. (AFP/Gael Grilhot)

Ugandan journalist abducted, assaulted

Unknown assailants on April 8, 2017, abducted and assaulted Gertrude Uwitware, a health reporter for the private Ugandan broadcaster NTV, from the streets of Kampala, according to the journalist and her employer.

Read More ›

TV journalist Joy Doreen Biira walks out of the Kasese police station in Uganda, November 28, 2016. (Arne Gillis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Ugandan journalist Joy Doreen Biira charged with ‘abetting terrorism’

Nairobi, November 30, 2016–Ugandan authorities should immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against Kenya Television Network (KTN) reporter and anchor Joy Doreen Biira, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police detained Biira on November 27 after she reported on a deadly battle between police and a traditional monarch’s royal guard, charged her with “abetting…

Read More ›

Uganda blocks social media sites for presidential inauguration

Nairobi, May 12, 2016 – Ugandan authorities should immediately restore access to social media websites and refrain from censoring any websites in the future, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Regulators blocked access to Twitter and Facebook, and to the messaging service WhatsApp today, according to press reports.

Read More ›

In this February 22, 2016, photo, riot police prevent the media from approaching Uganda's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye as he tries to leave his house in Kasangati, Uganda. (AP/Ben Curtis)

Ugandan minister warns media not to cover protests

Nairobi, May 9, 2016 – Ugandan authorities should cease attempting to intimidate journalists in an effort to keep them from covering protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Read More ›

Double Exposure

When it comes to abusive readers’ comments and tweets from Internet trolls, Katherine O’Donnell has heard it all. For years, O’Donnell, who is night editor of the Scottish edition of the U.K.’s The Times, has borne the brunt of personal attacks, including about her gender, from online trolls who take umbrage at articles in her…

Read More ›

Preparing for the Worst

It’s a calm day in a Ugandan village. Women gather on plastic chairs, shaded from the afternoon sun. I’m here with a handful of journalists on a reporting trip sponsored by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). The village women welcome us and begin to tell us about their lives. Then something happens. A man…

Read More ›

Footage shows journalist being punched outside corruption court in Uganda

The broadcast journalist Judith Naluggwa, who works for the state-owned station Bukedde Television, was attacked outside a Ugandan court on March 23, 2016 while reporting on a case of a minister at the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala, according to the local press freedom group Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda.

Read More ›

Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who is under house arrest, speaks during a news conference at his home on the outskirts of Kampala, the capital, on February 21. (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)

After disputed Uganda election, journalists fear prolonged crackdown

Twenty nine-year-old photographer Abubaker Lubowa was excited when he was assigned to cover the campaign of opposition leader Kizza Besigye. He told CPJ he did not anticipate that the assignment would mean he would make the news almost as often as he covered it.

Read More ›