The Human Rights House Foundation (HRH F) is deeply concerned about recent infringements on basic rights and freedoms of both the media and the opposition in Uganda. While the media have experienced temporary detention of editors and journalists, confiscation of equipment and material, and initiatives by the authorities to further tighten relevant legislation, including the Constitution, the opposition has been subjected to arrests and interrogation, violations of the right to assembly, and physical attacks on leading members.
The arrest of Andrew Mwenda, the editor of the independent fortnightly magazine the Independent, and two of his colleagues, on Saturday 26 April, followed by a search of both the magazine’s newsroom and Mwenda’s home and confiscation of equipment and material, is well known by now, but no less serious for that. On the contrary, seen in the context of Ugandan authorities’ move to establish a committee with a mandate to find ways to further restrict the country’s media freedom through legal means, the attack on the Independent appears more like part of a broader offensive to restrict and streamline the media’s behaviour.
The attacks on the political opposition are largely of a different character, with some significantly more violent, but less obviously of Ugandan authorities’ initiative. These attacks include an unresolved, but possible arson attack on Kizza Besigye, the leader of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) on the 29th of April, and the murder of Yusuf Oyuria, FDC’ chief mobiliser on the 27th of May, also unresolved. The arrest of six FDC members on the 30th of May* and the police’s message to the Democratic Party (DP) that its planned rally yesterday would not be allowed, are also causes of concern from a human rights perspective. While the first fits into a long established pattern of discrediting harassment of the opposition – the six were arrested on allegations of providing training in ‘civil disobedience’ – the second ironically came in response to DP’s wish to celebrate with a capital rally the recent ruling by the Constitutional Court that police permission is not needed to demonstrate. The ruling thus nullified the powers of the police chief to grant or deny permission for public assemblies.
The Human Rights House Foundation sees these infringements in a broader perspective. The accumulated impression of the numerous attacks on the freedom of both local and national media, and restrictions also on the working conditions of international journalists in Uganda in recent years combined with the harassment at all levels, individual and organisational, of the political opposition, is of a sustained, systematic and ever less subtle attempt to curb and control any and all opposing voices in the country.
HRH F calls upon Ugandan authorities to restore and respect full media freedom and recognize and observe the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, assembly and organisation.
· Concerning the right to freedom of expression, we want to remind the Ugandan authorities to their ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Article 19 states that
“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
· Concerning the freedom of assembly we want to remind the Ugandan authorities to article 21 in the same Covenant: “The right to peaceful assembly shall be recognized.”
· Concerning the freedom of association we want to remind to Article 22 of the same Covenant: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others.”
HRH F further urges the international donor and diplomacy community in Uganda to end its relative silence, and speak up, in words and diplomatic deeds, against the current development. Such measures should include increased efforts to promote and protect human rights – and its most vulnerable defenders – from further harassment from Ugandan authorities.
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