Ugandas ledende uafhængige dagblad The Monitor udkommer igen efter ti dages blokade fra politiet. International journalistorganisation frygter at pressefriheden har taget varig skade af begivenheden.
Journalists are back to work at Uganda’s leading privately owned daily, The Monitor, after a 10-day siege of their newsroom by police. But that does not mean it is business as usual for the nation’s press.
Det skriver journalisten Tom Rhodes på Committee to Protect Journalists website.
The paper’s owners at the Nation Media Group evidently begged and negotiated for its reopening–signaling to other media houses that they should toe the government line or face a similar stranglehold.
Although the deliberations were successful in returning the paper to the newsstands, the long-term costs may prove exorbitant.
The saga began on May 20 when police raided the premises of The Monitor ostensibly in search of a letter and related documents written by Gen. David Sejusa, the coordinator of intelligence services, on the sensitive question of presidential succession.
Sejusa’s letter, addressed to the Internal Security Organization Director-General, alleged an assassination plot against senior officials who reportedly oppose plans for President Yoweri Museveni’s son to succeed him.
The Monitor published sections of the letter and a story based on its contents on May 7.
Police asked for a court order to search The Monitor for the letter, but abused the directive, sealing off the newspaper’s premises as a crime scene, stopping the printing presses, and disrupting the operations of two sister radio stations, KFM and Dembe FM, housed in the same building.
Although The Monitor’s legal team obtained another court order to reopen the premises, and despite vocal protests by journalists and activists outside, police would not budge.
The stranglehold on The Monitor was fiscal as well as physical: the paper’s general finance manager, George Rioba, said it was losing 120 Ugandan shillings (US$48,000) each day of the siege, according to news reports.
Læs hele artiklen (begynd ved ”And yet there is little indication that police were genuinely interested in obtaining the letter in the first place.”): http://www.cpj.org/blog/2013/06/siege-over-but-damage-to-ugandan-press-may-last.php#more
Tom Rhodes er By Østafrika-konsulent for organisationen Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
The Monitor: http://www.monitor.co.ug/
