Uganda’s media clampdown part of regressive regional trend

A special Cabinet sub-committee formed to review Uganda’s press laws has recommended that the government more tightly restrict freedom of expression within the media. Uganda is not the only country in the region cracking down on journalists. According to watchdog organizations, Uganda’s policy is in-line with international trends.

Last year, press freedom declined both in sub-Saharan Africa and internationally for the sixth year in a row, according a report released April 29 by Freedom House, an international watchdog organization based in Washington, D.C. “The abuse of libel laws increased in a number of countries, most notably in Africa,” Freedom House said. In describing a global trend, the report used language representative of Uganda’s current situation: “Both governments and private individuals continue to restrict media freedom through the use of laws that forbid ‘inciting hatred,’ commenting on sensitive topics such as religion or ethnicity, or ‘endangering national security.’”

“One of the most distressing developments is that even democratically-elected governments cannot accept the fact that they have to let the media do its job. Uganda seems to be fitting this sad pattern lately,” said Darian Pavli, Legal Officer for Freedom of Expression and Information at the Open Society Justice Initiative. “The reports that the government has set up a committee to downgrade constitutional protections for media freedom and tighten up criminal laws are not only disturbing but unprecedented”.

The language of Uganda’s current laws is similar to that of restrictive laws on the books of other nations in the region. Though Section 50 of the Penal Code Act, which criminalised the “publication of false news,” was ruled unconstitutional, Section 39 defining “seditious intention” to include intention to “excite disaffection against the person of the President, the Government… or the Constitution” remains in place. It is currently being challenged in a petition before the Constitutional Court.

James Nangwala, Advocate and Senior Principal Lecturer at the Law Development Centre, has represented journalists prosecuted for sedition. “I still repeat that this offence is primitive,” Nangwala said. “It has outlived its usefulness. It is an offence which can only be used under monarchs, because those are leaders who are born but not elected”. Nangwala added that the Supreme Court has expressed a need to review all the laws criminalising expression to see whether they are compatible with democracy as enshrined in the Constitution.

Uganda’s existing laws invite confrontation between government forces and members of the press. “The laws that are still on the books are already so draconian that the government must take very coercive action to enforce them, overreacting with aggression against journalists,” said Dr. George Lugalambi, Head of the Mass Communication Department at Makerere University. For example, “the Anti-Terrorism Act clearly was designed with the media in mind; it criminalizes what would appear to be basic functions of the media, putting journalists in a very precarious situation”.

Section 11 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2002 states “Any person who… willfully arranges or assists in the arrangement of a meeting to be addressed by a person belonging or professing to belong to a terrorist organisation… commits an offence”. This language outlaws arranging interviews with people whom the government considers to be terrorists – an activity essential to journalistic coverage of many conflicts within the state.

The law also gives magistrates power to authorize investigation officers to compel journalists to compromise their sources’ anonymity. Furthermore, investigation officers need not even secure a warrant for the collection of journalistic material “if an investigation officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the case is one of great emergency and that in the interest of the State, immediate action is necessary”.

The ability to protect sources is essential to a journalist’s ability to solicit sensitive information from at-risk individuals. Many sources who act in opposition to the government will speak to journalists only under the condition that their identity or whereabouts not be revealed.

Another law makes an offence of promoting sectarianism. Nangwala said, “This is a society which has many tribes and you cannot avoid talking about one tribe or one ethnic group enjoying advantages over another. If you want to say so and then you end up in jail, that to me is a very unfortunate thing”. Uganda has also recently seen cases of criminal defamation.

In an interview with The Independent, Information and National Guidance Minister Kirunda Kivejinja, said that the new media restrictions were intended to promote patriotism and harmony among the Ugandan people and their government. Lugalambi disagreed, saying, “It comes to the fundamental issue of a government perceived as being illegitimate in the eyes of its people. Why else would it get edgy, touchy, even on legitimate issues that people should debate? Responding to criticism in an unduly aggressive manner shows that the government lacks political self-confidence”.

Nangwala described the government’s motives more along the lines of self-preservation. “I think the time has come when the government is now realizing that it has shot itself in the foot by bringing liberalism,” Nangwala said. “Especially, security forces use quite brutal means maybe to extract information or to suppress a rebellion and in the course of which mistakes may be made. And when mistakes are made, the only medium that victims of such acts can resort to is the press and the independent press has tended to expose such malpractices and certainly that exposure brings the state in a bad light”.

Not all sub-Saharan African countries restrict the press as harshly as Uganda does. Ghana eliminated its criminal libel and sedition laws in 2001 and Kenya struck its insult and sedition provisions over a decade ago. South Africa doesn’t have a sedition law on the books either. However, these are exceptions to the regional trend. Though Angola no longer has a state monopoly on TV broadcasting, its current law prohibits the publication of information that “causes disruption of public order and tranquility” as well as the “continued publication of partially or totally false information about… any person”. This language is similar to that of Uganda’s stricken Section 50, which made the publication of any “false statement, rumour or report which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or to disturb the public peace” a misdemeanour.

Botswana’s restrictive sedition law reads almost identically to Uganda’s: it prohibits publication of anything that “incites disaffection against the President or the Government of Botswana”. Insult or ridicule of patriotic emblems is also punishable by fine. In Burundi, “dissemination of information that insults the president” is illegal; the DR Congo’s 1996 Press Law outlaws both insulting the Head of State or Prime Minister and publishing false information. In Rwanda, the media is tightly controlled. Publication of false news is illegal, as are publications that interfere with morality and insults directed at people in government.

The Uganda Newspaper Editors and Proprietors Association issued a statement calling for dialogue on the subject before any media restrictions are harshened, and any laws resulting from the sub-committee’s suggestions are likely to be challenged in the Constitutional Court.Others like Nangwala foresee a multiplicity of constitutional petitions challenging laws which oppress freedom of expression. “You see, my opinion is that once you are in a position of leadership and once you have sought the mandate to govern them, you must be very tolerant to criticism. Either you are tolerant or you don’t opt to go to serve the people through their mandate,” said Nangwala.

Any new laws are likely to cause a fresh spate of arrests of journalists. But in response to the ongoing cases of sedition under the current law, Kivejinja said, “How do you expect that you must be clean when actually you’re working in mud?” Journalists have faced similar charges of “muckraking” throughout the history of modern investigative journalism.

Nangwala sees the issue differently. “I think the problem is not the press,” he said. “It is the acts reported by the press. So if the acts reported by the press are acts of government, I would rather the government checks its excesses”.

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