Uganda’s military continues to lay siege on the country’s largest non-state newspaper, one of the largest private news broadcasters, alongside other channels and radio stations owned by Nation Media Group (NMG), the largest media conglomerate in East and Central Africa.

Troops raided its Ugandan headquarters and the broadcasting centers located at the Serena Hotel in the capital, Kampala, just after midnight, around 1 am on Sunday, June 28.

Its television stations, including NTV, one of the most viewed private news broadcasters in the country, and the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, “are being shut down from today!” military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba posted on X.

By 5 am, NTV Uganda and Spark TV went off air. The NMG-owned radio stations, KFM and Dembe FM, fell silent. The newspaper did not roll out of its printing press that morning.

“From now on ALL bad stories about Uganda have to be cleared by my office! In Uganda, I DO NOT believe in a free press!” declared Kainerugaba, who is also the son and heir apparent of Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda since 1986.

Earlier this January, Museveni won a seventh term in an election marred by “widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition, human rights defenders, [and] journalists,” according to the UN.

Army chief threatens to kill opposition leaders; brags about abduction and torture
Soon after Museveni was declared the winner, his son unleashed the military on the opposition. “So far we have killed 30” and arrested 2,000 members of the main opposition party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), Kainerugaba had announced on X only days later. When its leader, Bobi Wine, Museveni’s main opponent, was forced underground and eventually into exile, Kainerugaba told his troops to “bring him in dead or alive!”

Crosspost from https://news.abolish.capital/post/62817