“Right now we don’t know why they are looking for us, but you can be sure that regardless of what they do, we will continue to be journalists, even if they torture us or even kill us. That you can trust,” Mwenda, founder of The Independent, told reporters at a press conference in Washington on 20th November 2008.
Mwenda was introduced at the National Press Club along with other recipients of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awards, including Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad, founders of Afghanistan’s Pajhwok Afghan News. Representatives of two other awardees – photographer Bilal Hussein of The Associated Press and imprisoned Cuban journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez – appeared on their behalf. Zimbabwean media lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, recipient of CPJ’s Burton Benjamin Award for lifetime achievement, spoke as well.
Mwenda’s assistant, John Rubanjwa, told CPJ from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, that plainclothes agents with the Criminal Investigation Department delivered a summons for Mwenda at 3 p.m. local time today. Charles Bichachi, a top Independent editor who also received a summons, said agents told the magazine they wanted to interrogate editors about coverage deemed “prejudicial” to state security. The agents did not elaborate, he said.
Such summons are a common tactic in Uganda, where the government regularly deploys security agents to harass, detain, and interrogate critical journalists. Mwenda’s magazine has been critical of President Yoweri Museveni’s administration, particularly its spending practices and handling of a rebel conflict in the country’s north. In all, Mwenda is fighting 21 criminal charges, including sedition and “promoting sectarianism.” He has challenged the constitutionality of the charges in court.
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.
