Kalundi was whisked away by unknown security men as he stepped out of the WBS television studio, where he had appeared as one of the discussants on the Kibazo show on Friday. The talk show has since been suspended by the media council, just like other phone-ins and talk shows.
He was beaten up before being bundled into a car boot and rushed to an unknown destination. In the courts, he appeared before magistrate John Wekesa where he was charged “with intention to bring hatred, contempt and disaffection against the person of the president”. Serumaga was represented by lawyer David Mpanga.
He was granted cash bail of Uganda Shillings 500,000 (about US$250) cash with journalists Godfrey Ssebagala Wokulira and Richard Mugisha standing as his sureties.
The arrest, and indictment of Serumaga heightened a week of unrest and media rights violations in Kampala, which culminated into the switching off of four radio stations, suspension of talk shows and phone-in programmes and warning and threatening of a host of radio presenters in a number of local radios.
“All these amounts to harassment and intimidation of the media and journalists in Uganda by a regime that cannot accommodate free speech. We urge our journalist colleagues to soldier on and stand firm in defence of media freedom,” EAJA said, in reaction to the charge.
Tervil Okoko
Regional Co-ordinator, Media Freedom, Advocacy and Research
Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA)
B.P 4099, Djibouti, Republic of Djibouti
Tel. +254-734 09 32 75
E-mail: tervil@eaja.org, ttokoko@yahoo.com
eaja@eaja.org
