Yoweri Museveni casts foreign media as Uganda’s enemies over protest coverage

• President says BBC and others cheer on rebels • Rival Besigye blamed for ‘riots ignited by drug users’ Uganda’s president has branded the BBC and other media organisations as “enemies” because of their coverage of recent anti-government protests. Yoweri Museveni blamed “drug users” for the month-long demonstrations, the biggest civil unrest in sub-Saharan Africa this year, and pledged to “end this criminality”. In a statement published in the state-owned New Vision newspaper, Museveni warned: “The media houses, both local and international, such as al-Jazeera, BBC, NTV, The Daily Monitor, etc, that cheer on these irresponsible people, are enemies of Uganda’s recovery and they will have to be treated as such. Why do they not also report the negative acts of these elements?” Kabakumba Masiko, the Ugandan information minister, said laws would be amended to deal with any journalist who became an “enemy of the state”. She told the BBC’s Network Africa programme: “If you look at the way these media houses have been reporting what has been going on in our country, you realise they were inciting people and trying to show that Uganda is now ungovernable, is under fire as if the state is about to collapse.” There have been signs that Uganda’s government feels increasingly threatened by both traditional and new media. At least 10 local and foreign journalists were assaulted by soldiers while covering the return to Uganda last week of the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, according to Reporters without Borders. Press have imposed a news blackout on the government in response to what they describe as rising brutality against those covering the demonstrations. In a press briefing following riots on 29

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