Uganda Media Covering Live Opposition Protests To Lose Licences
The Ugandan government has banned and threatened to revoke licences of any media outlet that dares to cover live protests planned by opposition groups in the country.
A statement issued by Ugandan Minister for Information and National Guidance Jim Muhwezi said the planned protests would violate a court order issued last week by the country’s constitutional court.
“All live broadcast of defiance activities should stop. Any media house that continues to cover them
risks having their license revoked,” said Muhwezi.
The decision to block the protests, dubbed “Defiance Campaigns”, was made by the Ugandan cabinet to stop opposition leader Kizza Besigye, the Forum for Democratic Change candidate in the recent presidential election.
Dr Besigye lost the contest, for the fourth time, to President Yoweri Museveni in a vote largely condemned by international observers as not free.
The February 18 vote saw President Museveni, 71, declared winner with 5,617,503 votes, representing 60.75 per cent of 9,246, 563 valid votes cast, while Dr Besigye garnered 3,270,290 votes, representing 35.37 per cent of the valid votes cast.
Dr Besigye subsequently called the results a “fraud.”
Former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, who came third, contested the results in the Ugandan Supreme Court but the judges confirmed President Museveni’s victory.
The Defiance Campaigns were meant to signify that President Museveni was illegitimately elected.
But the Ugandan information minister, once impeached by his parliament over corruption when he served as health minister, argued that the demonstrations cannot continue because there is a court order stopping such activities and that the protests could inhibit the forthcoming inauguration of President Museveni for his fifth term on May 12.
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