Human Rights Network for Journalists – Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda)

Atim Brenda Kinyera, the host of a weekly program “Yab wangi” said that police officers arrested her at gunpoint and punched her, despite her informing them that she was a journalist who was heading to work at a nearby radio station

Herbert Zziwa was brutally assaulted by a police officer while covering the Luweero Woman Parliamentary by-elections on 22 May 2014.

The break-in of Human Rights Network-Uganda’s offices follows a trend of similar occurrences on organisations involved in human rights work. An official from the NGO Forum said that over 15 offices of human rights organisations have been broken into under similar circumstances.

Spice FM radio fired Geoffrey Magezi after he hosted former opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye, the leader of the FDC Women’s league Ingrid Turinawe and the Democratic Party President, Norbert Mao to discuss electoral reforms in the run-up to the 2016 general elections.

Ddamba Ismael was attacked by a mob of angry commercial motorcyclists while he covered them demanding the release of their colleague, who had been detained by the cyclists’ leaders for allegedly failing to pay operational fees in Kampala.

The Media Council of Uganda has summoned two media houses and a journalist over a news story about a cabinet minister’s alleged plot to grab a deceased person’s property.

In the resolution, the ACHPR “strongly condemns the serious violations of the right to life committed against journalists and media practitioners” and appeals for “the immediate cessation of harassment and intimidation aimed at independent media organisations” in Somalia.

Human Rights Network for Journalists has released an analysis of media laws in Uganda that limit freedom of expression. HRNJ-Uganda’s national coordinator notes that a number of existing laws in Uganda do not safeguard growth of the media, but rather seek to control the work of journalists.