Media under siege: Battered in line of duty

Security agencies are getting angrier and battering messengers telling the public that something bad has happened.
Even when journalists are not responsible for protests rocking parts of the country, they have been left with open wounds, swellings on their bodies and fear.

The journalists tell stories of innocent messengers beaten in their line of duty for carrying bad news that they did not create.

Their bodies bear marks of both military and police brutality for covering the Monday protests in Kampala.
The journalists, including Ronald Galiwango and Juma Kirya (NTV), James Akena (Reuters), Alfred Ochwo (Observer) and Julius Muhumuza (Online), were caught up in crossfire as security personnel battled protesters who have been enraged by the army’s continued detention of Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine. Mr Kyagulanyi and several other MPs and supporters were arrested during the Arua Municipality by-election campaign fracas last week.

Akena was on Monday morning covering the protests in Kisekka Market in downtown Kampala when men dressed in military uniform battered him using long sticks, warning that “we shall kill you all.”
“I was pushed under the police truck after they had taken away my camera and money. Only the phone survived and when we reached CPS [Kampala Central Police Station], they ordered me to delete all the recordings from the camera but mine was in pieces,” Mr Akena told Daily Monitor yesterday from his hospital bed in Kampala where he was admitted following the beatings.

The scars
He said a scan indicated he had sustained a clot in the back of his head. One of his fingers was broken and another cracked while a kick to his back displaced one of the backbones, causing sharp pain.

NTV’s Galiwango and Kirya are also yet to recover from the wounds sustained as plain-clothed security men used a pair of pliers to pluck some skin from their bodies, removed their protective gear and hit them with sticks and batons.
“I still feel pain in the knee because these people were beating me randomly,” Mr Kirya says, adding that the battering started after they bumped into uniformed army men around Mini-Price in downtown Kampala. He said the men were angry that they were recording the scuffle between security agencies and the protesters.

On the same day, another Daily Monitor photojournalist, Mr Alex Esagala, together with his colleagues from other media houses, were surrounded by men dressed in uniform of Special Forces Command, the unit that guards the President, who then beat and forced them to sit down and delete footage of the protests in Katwe, Kampala.

Lost items
Although some journalists were able to recover their cameras at Kampala CPS where they were all taken and released without charge, the security officers did not return their phones and money.
Some men believed to be security officers also continued to intimidate journalists who covered the fracas on the last day of the Arua Municipality by-election campaigns. Even those who remained in the newsroom to author stories on the same have been marked out for harassment.

Mr Franklin Draku, a Daily Monitor journalist, received a strange phone call at his home on Saturday, the same day he had just returned from covering the Arua by-election. The caller demanded he hands over photos and videos of the fracas before they sedated him in his room the same night.

“Shortly after, a lady, who identified herself as Zafra, called, demanding the same. She told me ‘we know where you are and we shall get you’. I put my phone off and after about five minutes, I became dizzy and in this state, I remember a lady wearing a white short dress opening the door,” Mr Draku narrated.

“She [the woman] put on the light and went straight for my safari bag and started emptying the contents. At this point, I was unable to move and even talk. I eventually lost consciousness. I only woke up on Sunday at around 5pm. On checking around, I discovered my Nikon camera, a Dell laptop, an I-pad, a Tecno tab, power bank, identity card, phone and laptop chargers, and cash worth Shs373,000 missing,” he added.

Intimidation
On Monday afternoon , as Mr Derrick Wandera, another Daily Monitor journalist, covered the press briefing by MP Kyagulanyi’s relatives about the latter’s arrest, he received a call from an anonymous person who threatened him with death. “We know you are hardly 26 and you are getting involved in these issues of the State. Please back off Bobi Wine’s story if you can. I am not sure you can explain the stories you are writing, for example this one in today’s Daily Monitor [Bobi Wine sustained injuries, says Barbie]. We are watching you. You are too young to die,” the voice on the other side warned.
Brig Richard Karemire, the army spokesperson, yesterday criticised the unprofessional conduct of soldiers who battered journalists while deployed on a joint operation with police to quell the protests in Kampala.

“UPDF wishes to express its displeasure over such behaviour by those individuals and as a result, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) has ordered their arrest and punishment,” Brig Karemire said in a statement.
The police spokesperson, Mr Emilian Kayima, said he had not been briefed about any formal complaint registered by any journalist.

He said they can only punish the responsible officers when there is evidence adduced. But Mr Draku registered a formal complaint at Kira Road Police Station, [reference No.: SD REF: 32/19/08/018].
“The problem with journalists is that they make complaints in media but never make formal complaints to police. We can only punish the offenders when someone has made a formal complaint,” Mr Kayima said yesterday.