Hundreds of employees of The Red Pepper and its sister publications are smiling ear to ear after the government agreed to allow them to resume business.
According to the Red pepper management, the agreement was reached at last night during a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni at State House Entebbe.
It is reported that His Excellency pardoned the Company Directors and its Senior Editors and promised to immediately order the police to vacate the Pepper head office at Namanve and return all confiscated electronic equipment to the company.
According to the publication’s management, the meeting followed both formal and informal protracted negotiations with senior government officials and individuals which commenced when the police stormed the Red Pepper offices on November 21 last year and closed down the publication, sending its five directors and three senior editors to prison for a month.
The closure and subsequent prosecution of the paper's senior officials followed a publication the previous day of a lead story that the state said was prejudicial to national security and that of the region.
But, the pardon did not come without conditions. President Museveni warned the Directors and Editors to stop being reckless and become more professional in the course of their reporting.
He then ordered his staff to give each of the 8 officials copies of a revised edition of his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed and a booklet containing a lecture he gave during the marking of Nelson Mandela's Day at Makerere University last year, to sharpen their ideological awareness.
The Directors and Senior Editors pledged to the President and the nation, a more transformed and professional publication going forward. Management promised that The Red Pepper, is set to hit the streets very soon.
