On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Ibrahim Miracle, a journalist working with Christian-based Top Television, was brutally assaulted by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce (JATT) personnel, almost plucking off his eyes during a fracas between the supporters of the Opposition National Unity Platform and the security forces. Ibrahim, who was dressed in the company shirt, visibly identifying himself as a journalist, was targeted by the security forces for filming the fracas and thereafter was taken to Nsambya Hospital, where he is currently battling for his life.
The brutal assault on Ibrahim is just the latest incident of the worsening situation in the country, where journalists are targeted by the security forces for doing their work, and fears are ripe that the situation will worsen as the country heads towards the 2026 general elections. During the Kawempe North by-election, journalists were particularly targeted by the security forces and beaten to a pulp. Many suffered physical injuries while several others lost their equipment during the targeted brutality.
With the Kawempe North violence targeting journalists, the major media houses, including Nation Media Group Uganda, NBS TV, and others, withdrew their field reporters from covering the elections, giving the security forces an unchecked avenue for gross human rights violations of Kawempe residents. Media associations and organisations followed the withdrawal with a media blackout on security forces and their events.
However, not all media houses spoke with a united voice, and many chose to dine again with their tormentors under duress from their bosses. Already, signs are clear that the security forces are muscling up ahead of the official onset of campaigns to curtail the opposition politicians and their supporters, and warning bells have been sounded to media houses and journalists against covering the opposition rallies.
Freedom index Data from different human rights groups, including Human Rights Network for Journalists, Uganda, indicated that increasingly, journalists are being attacked, injured, and threatened, and their property vandalised by the institutions that are mandated to guarantee the enjoyment of these freedoms and protect them.
The constant attacks on journalists contravene the Constitution of Uganda, regional and international conventions that Uganda has ratified. In 2011, Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) documented 107 cases of attacks on journalists compared to 58 in 2010 and 38 in 2009. The attacks range from shootings, physical attacks, unlawful arrest and detention, incarceration of journalists, denying access to news scenes, confiscation of equipment, defective and trumped-up charges, to verbal threats.
According to the report, the violations happened countrywide under different commands of police and the army. “The trend indicates a systematic and calculated move by these institutions to hamper journalists from executing their duties. There is a high degree of impunity by the law enforcement agencies and other institutions to pursue perpetrators in spite of HRNJ-Uganda’s concerted efforts to engage them. The victims of these abuses deserve and await justice from the relevant institutions.
This, therefore, is an obligation the government must fulfil,” the report said. The records from HRNJ show that attacks were mainly by the police, UPDF, resident district commissioners, individuals linked to the government, and others.
The attacks took place mainly during the Walk-to-work demonstrations in different parts of the country, with the security officers accusing journalists of portraying them negatively as they executed their work. “Attacks by politicians were mainly through ordering their supporters to beat journalists during election campaigns. Many reporters were beaten by soldiers and army men while covering the demonstrations.
The majority of the attacks were deliberately aimed at scaring journalists from covering the events. These attacks heightened in May, along Entebbe Road, when journalists covered the return of Kiiza Besigye from Nairobi after acquiring medical treatment,” the report said. In 2012, however, 46 cases of violations were committed by the Police; an indication of a deteriorating relationship between the Police and journalists. In 2013, a total of 124 violations were documented, 85 were by the Police: of these, 51 were physical in nature.
On May 28 and 29, 2013, police assaulted and tear-gassed more than 30 journalists to deter them from covering the continued closure and occupation of the Daily Monitor newspaper, KFM, and Dembe radio stations’ premises by security agencies searching for an alleged malicious document published by Daily Monitor.
Mr Mulindwa Mukasa of Associated Press and Ntege Williams, a freelancer, sustained wounds on their arms and legs from police beatings. 2013 witnessed the death of a journalist, with six journalists murdered between 2008 and 2013. Pere Thomas, 36, a news features writer and photographer with New Vision paper, was killed and his body was found dumped in a trench on June 16, 2013, in Masajja Village on the outskirts of Kampala City on Entebbe Road.
A month after his murder, two suspects, both commuter taxi drivers, were arrested with a blood-stained taxi suspected to have been used in the murder. In September, Katwe police station released the suspects after the DNA results turned out negative, according to the Kampala South Metropolitan Crime Intelligence officer Paul Mark Odongo. The actual assailant(s) behind this gruesome act remain at large.
Source: monitor.co.ug
