Uganda bars newspaper's release
2007-12-14 11:24
Kampala - The Ugandan presidency prevented the printing of the first edition of a new independent weekly newspaper which had been due to hit the newsstands on Friday, the paper's owner and editor said.
Andrew Mwenda, owner and editor of The Independent, said that his printer had been told by the presidency to halt printing.
"He told us that he had been called by state house and ordered not to print us," said Mwenda, an outspoken journalist and former talk show host who lost his job with The Monitor daily after publishing controversial articles on the country's political life.
President Yoweri "Museveni can deny but he cannot stop my newspaper from coming out," said Mwenda.
He added he was looking into ways of having his newspaper printed in Kenya or Tanzania.
Presidential spokesperson Tamale Mirundi dismissed the allegations.
"We have never banned any paper, and we never banned his talk show when he was still at Monitor Radio, why would we ban a paper that is not yet published? That is just a marketing gimmick," he said.
Uganda has been criticised for its poor human rights record but is reputed to offer a relatively free press environment compared to some its neighbours.