Support the Monitor five

I urge people to read We are under attack in Uganda’s leading national paper, The Daily Monitor.

It tells the shocking tale of the interrogation and charging of five excellent journalists over a story reporting details of a Ugandan Ministry of Finance investigation into a government corruption scandal.

Far from being based on gossip, the original story published back in August is extremely detailed, carefully balanced, quotes from the investigation and merely reports what one government agency is saying about another.

As a result the Monitor five are facing trial in a few days and have been interrogated by the anti-terrorism squad and the department of serious crime - hardly the right use of Uganda’s most powerful law enforcers.

The salary sandal concerns one of the most powerful women in Uganda - Faith Mwondha, the Inspector General of Government. She has apparently been paying herself 50% more than she should, a breach of the Ugandan constitution, and (you would have thought) precisely the sort of thing a free press is there to report.

The charged journalists are: Joachim Buwembo, managing editor; Bernard Tabaire, managing editor (weekend); Robert Mukasa, news editor; Emmanuel Gyezaho, political reporter and Angelo Izama, special projects writer.

I know the two managing editors. They are fine journalists. And The Monitor is a credit to Uganda - a strong, independent voice. (Interest declared: we are helping to relaunch it).

The immediate need is to support the journalists. The longer term tragedy is that events like this will only lose Uganda the respect of the rest of world - which was at an all-time high last year in November when Commonwealth leaders gathered in the capital Kampala.

1 comment February 4th, 2008