Free Andrew Mwenda

HipHopRepublican.com is asking all liberty loving bloggers around the world in calling for the condemnation of a series of recent arrest by the government of Uganda. One of the persons subjected to arrest is of Andrew Mwenda. Mwenda is a libertarian and editor of the Ugandan periodical the Independent!




UPDATE

The trio were later freed on bail for the offenses linked to two stories published in this week's edition of the Independent that were critical of the government. "One story features an interview with an army deserter who discussed claims of secret detentions and torture by Ugandan military intelligence and implicated top officials in atrocities during Uganda's civil war," CPJ said in a statement."We are concerned by this raid against The Independent and Andrew Mwenda," said CPJ's Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. "Ugandan authorities have a history of prosecuting Mwenda based on his critical journalism.

We call on the authorities to restore all equipment and possessions seized from the journalists and the newspaper immediately."Mr. Mwenda is an outspoken journalist and former radio talk show host who lost his job with The Monitor daily after publishing controversial articles on the country's political life. Uganda has been criticized for its poor human rights record, but is reputed to offer a relatively free press environment compared to some of its neighbors.The Monitor (Uganda) writes an editorial in defense of its former employee: "The security personnel first raided Mwenda's home in Kololo in search of seditious material.

He was manhandled, handcuffed and bundled into a security car. If there was reasonable ground to suggest that the magazine had committed an offence within the provisions of the law, there are clear legal procedures on how the journalists can be handled. In a civilised, democratic and free country, the police do not manhandle and handcuff journalists as if they are highway robbers or hardcore street criminals. They are, at worst, summoned to police and later charged in court. This brutality was not just directed at The Independent but the press in general. The government must desist from such brutality and learn civilised ways of handling journalists through the law. In Uganda today, it's increasingly becoming difficult to write or publish a story severely critical of the State or its gurus without standing the risk of being arrested or summoned to CID. The freedom of the press is rapidly getting stifled and (if this trend continues) will ultimately be irreversibly suffocated