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Uganda: Agony of a Journalist in a Police State
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The Monitor (Kampala)
COLUMN
15 May 2008
Posted to the web 14 May 2008
Charles Opolot
The front page story of journalists being arrested and tortured (Sunday Monitor, April 27) was just another one of those stories I have gotten used to in this thankless job of journalism. Mr Andrew Mwenda, the Managing Editor of The Independent and his team got into trouble with the state.
A Daily Monitor photojournalist, Joseph Kiggundu was beaten up and blindfolded for just doing his job; taking photographs of the security agents who had raided The Independent offices in Kamwokya. Nobody comes to my mind than my old teacher, Ben Bella Ilakut alias professor. Journalism, in Ben Bella's own words, is not for the feeble minded or faint hearted.
Unlike reporters who can afford to observe events and record them at a safe distance, photographers and cameramen do not have that privilege. The photojournalists get into the thick of things all the time. They risk their lives, for the sake of a picture that tells it all.
On many occasions they have gotten killed or if they are lucky they get kicked like criminals. But they can't regret nor retreat. It's the job they chose to do. This is the price Kiggundu paid and many more Kiggundus in this world will pay.
The message I wish to convey to those who claim to be the owners of this country is that journalists are ears and eyes of society. Our role is that of a watchdog. We are merely fellows with big eyes and large ears, self appointed messengers of society.
We exist because of humanity, we watch over those who steal our money, those who derive pleasure in abusing our rights as citizens. Our loyalty is to society, not security operatives or the state.
Surely with the education level of the people leading our security apparatus, one would expect they would display some degree of decency while doing their work. Why arrest harmless journalists with all that brutality as if it was Osama bin Laden or Joseph Kony being apprehended?
With the peace and democracy that the NRM claims to have ushered in, can't these poor journalists be called to the nearest police station to answer their charges? Where is the decency in our society? Are these the type of security forces that are (as we hear) undergoing professionalisation? Or were they only professionalized to harass and intimidate its citizens?
Why on earth would any military person be so enthusiastic to beat up unarmed person like a journalist who could have been simply told to leave the scene? What do the security forces in this country want journalists to do; sit and watch them as they trample on people's rights?
These questions need no answers. On Sunday I watched Aljazeera TV story of brutal murder of one of us, Fadel Shana, in Gaza. It was another reminder that this world is full of enthusiastic hooligans, so obsessed with the naive thinking that they are the Alfa and omega of everything on earth.
But our resolve as journalists is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. We shall never stop doing our job. We shall face the state. We shall continue capturing the barbarity and cruelty of rogue state agents that attempt to suffocate press freedom and people's liberties. Journalism is a job we trained to do, just like security personnel trained and specialised in dogmatic loyalty and fanaticism for the state.
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The writer is a photojournalist
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