* Newspapers, radio stations still closed after eight days
* Crackdown follows coverage related to president’s
succession
KAMPALA, May 28 (Reuters) – Ugandan police fired tear gas at
journalists in the capital Kampala on Tuesday who were
protesting against a media crackdown after press reports sparked
a rare public debate on who will succeed aging President Yoweri
Museveni.
Authorities in the east African country halted operations at
two newspapers and two radio stations on May 20 after they
reported a purported plot to assassinate certain people who said
that Museveni was grooming his son for power.
Allegations of such a plot were mentioned by General David
Sejusa in a private letter that was leaked to The Daily Monitor,
the country’s biggest-circulating independent daily, which is
owned by Kenya’s Nation Media Group and is one of the
newspapers that the authorities closed down.
Police have said they were investigating the alleged
assassination plot and that the closure of the newspapers and
radio stations was to allow them to search for documents.
Wokulira Ssebaggala, National Coordinator at Human Rights
Network for Journalists-Uganda, said about 20 journalists were
approaching the premises of the Daily Monitor in Kampala when
police officers started firing teargas at them.
“They fired tear gas at us, roughed up some of our members,
confiscated a camera from me and arrested two of our
colleagues,” Ssebaggala said. “We just wanted to deliver our
message to them that they must vacate the premises of these
media houses and allow them to reopen.”
Speculation is growing that Museveni, in office since 1986
and one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, is lining up his
son to take power at the end of his term in 2016, a move that
would likely test the loyalties of Uganda’s ruling elite.
Deputy police spokesman Patrick Onyango told Reuters that
police fired the tear gas because they were provoked, and that
the two journalists were released after being questioned
briefly.
Onyango said the newspapers and radio stations would remain
sealed off as crime scenes, even though the Daily Monitor had
obtained a court order requiring the police to vacate the
premises last week.
“If the management of these media houses want to reopen then
they should cooperate and give us the documents we want,” he
said.
Western governments and international rights groups have
condemned the media crackdown.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by George Obulutsa and
Raissa Kasolowsky)
