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BEHIND BARS: Monitor's Political Editor and host of
Tonight with Andrew
Live, a talk show on KFM, Andrew Mwenda. Monitor's Mwenda detained CHARLES MWANGUHYA, SIMON KASYATE, SIRAJ LUBWAMA & KELVIN NSANGI KAMPALA The host of the Tonight With Andrew Mwenda Live
talk show on 93.3 KFM has
been arrested and detained on charges of sedition. Mr Mwenda who is also the Political Editor of the
Daily Monitor was
yesterday interrogated by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for at least one and a half hours and later whisked off to the Central Police Station (CPS) where he was booked for the night. According to the Monitor Publications Ltd Legal and
Administrative Manager,
Ms Anne Abeja Muhwezi, Mwenda was questioned over his August 10 edition of the talk show. Earlier on Thursday, the Broadcasting Council had shut down KFM over the same programme and suspended the radio station's broadcasting licence for allegedly "offending minimum broadcasting standards." Mwenda, clad in a blue short sleeve KFM shirt, a
black pair of jeans walked
into the CID headquarters along Sir Apollo Kaggwa Road near Parliament at 3:43 pm after receiving summons earlier in the afternoon. Upon arrival, he joked to colleagues from Daily
Monitor who waited outside
the gate, "I have left my phone at home, I have no belt, and I am ready to go to jail." Accompanied by Monitor lawyer James Nangwala and Muhwezi, Mwenda walked straight into the office of Assistant Superintendent of Police Charles Kataratambi. "Good afternoon gentlemen, I am here for you to
bite, to chew and to
swallow. What are you saying?" he joked upon entering the office. Kataratambi replied, "I am pleased you know how to keep time." Seated in the office was the Presidential Assistant
on Political Affairs, Mr
Moses Byaruhanga, who was one of the guests on Mwenda's show on Wednesday. Mwenda and Byaruhanga hugged and exchanged pleasantries before the latter was led to another office within the CID complex. Shortly afterwards Kataratambi ordered the
journalists to stay away, saying
only Mwenda and the lawyers were required in the office. Byaruhanga did not speak to journalists but CID officials said he had recorded a statement. Mwenda stayed in Kataratambi's office for close to two hours before the interrogation began. He was later moved to another office by the O/C
Serious Crime SSP James
Habuchiriro where he was kept for one and a half hours before he was later returned to Kataratambi's office. Mwenda was charged and cautioned for sedition under Section 50 of the Penal Code Act before he recorded a statement. Sedition is an utterance, which has the "intention
of bringing into
disaffection the person of the president, the government as by law established or the Constitution." A charge and caution is a procedural requirement that whatever is said may be used as evidence in a court of law. Nangwala said before being questioned and making
the statement, Mwenda
dramatically tried to acclimatise himself to prison conditions by lying on the floor, surprising the Police officers present. Nangwala told Daily Monitor that after Mwenda made
his statement,
Habuchiriro made several phone calls before a gray Saloon car Reg. No. UAD 476R, arrived to take him to CPS. "We were not told at any time that Mwenda would be
detained," Nangwala said
adding, "so when he was asked to get into this car, we had to follow the car." At CPS, which was in darkness due to a power blackout, Mwenda was taken to the booking office where he was booked in and later moved down a dark alley into a crowded cell in the basement of CPS at 7:05pm. Monitor Publications Managing Director Conrad Nkutu
described the detention
as very unfortunate and "an excessive reaction from the government." Nkutu said Mwenda had walked himself to CID and they should have invited him to appear again. He said the law of sedition under which Mwenda was
charged "does not have a
proper place in a democratic state." "All countries that respect press freedom as a pillar of democracy have removed from their books laws that criminalise media offences," Nkutu said. © 2005 The Monitor Publications Ltd.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
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