Uganda police force has cancelled a peaceful demonstration organized by journalists to express their disgust against brutality by the former, slated for today Friday September 28th 2018.
The force refuses to have journalists rain on their torture parade by reporting them to the speaker of parliament. On Tuesday, the media body “Uganda Journalists Association,” UJA held a meeting and decided to petition the speaker of parliament over continued battering of scribes by police.
The association leadership invited all media practitioners to converge at the city square today morning and start a procession to parliament where they would hand over a petition demanding that the speaker and legislature demand that security agencies stop battering them.
Journalists have on several occasions been beaten up and their equipment destroyed as they carried out their legal duty. Most of this happens during protests especially in the recent days where they were beaten up in Kisekka during riots against imprisonment of legislators including Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.
They were also brutally arrested in Entebbe as they waited for the same MP to land from US last week, and at the UNHCR offices where refugees were protesting insecurity in their camps on Tuesday.
Journalists want individual officers implicated in such cases to be publicly tried, pay medical bills for affected journalists and buy their equipment.
However, police last evening wrote to UJA cancelling their planned demonstration to parliament. The association leadership has since decided to comply with the directive to cancel the “Black Friday” procession to avoid further battering of its members.
“We have resolved to comply with the directive, not because we are cowards but would not wish to witness our fellow scribes battered, brutalized and arrested the more by the most violators of our rights. In the interim, our legal team is scrutinizing the police letter upon which we shall communicate the way forward” UJA Information secretary Kabuye Ronald writes.
The association postponed the events until further notice.