The bimonthly independent newsmagazine The Independent has been in the government’s spotlight for the past month following investigations the paper led into illegal detention centres in the suburbs of Kampala, Uganda. Consequently, the paper’s staff is getting accustomed to police raids and arrests. Nevertheless, managing editor Andrew Mwenda said to RAP 21, “Of course we are publishing as usual,” inferring that it will take a lot more to silence his publication.

“Press freedom in Uganda is coming under threat, the press is being gagged and stories deemed to be critical are taken in bad light by the state,” said chief sub editor Richard Oundo to RAP 21. Since 1987 the Ugandan army has been fighting against the separatist Christian group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, in the northern region of the country. As proved by the charges against The Independent, the government has not as a result taken headlines undermining the army lightly or openly.

Since its inception in December 2007, The Independent has had inimical relations with the government. The government tried to stop it even before its first issue, though Mwenda did not falter.

“Our job is to promote press freedom; we cannot sit by and watch torture continue,” said Mwenda. As a result, CPJ reports that he currently faces 15 counts of “sedition” and “promoting sectarianism” spanning work from August 2005 until now. Most of the charges stem from a commentary aired on his former political radio talk show, “Tonight with Andrew Mwenda Live." Mwenda’s defence lawyer, Bob Kasango, reported to CPJ that if convicted he could spend up to 75 years in jail.

The Independent’s investigation into the proscriptive torture around the country has led to the most recent actions taken against the paper. On 26 April, security officials surrounded Mwenda in the suburb of Kololo as he was driving home. He was held at gunpoint and arrested while officials continued to his house and newsroom in search of any “seditious” material. Mwenda was released from detention on 29 April and he has since appeared in court to address his charges.

Mwenda told RAP 21 that The Independent published a series of articles in April 2008 on clandestine detention centres where military intelligence tortured detainees. Mwenda said, “Houses in the suburbs are rented out as torture chambers” that are called safe houses.

For the research the paper interviewed 17 people who were sentenced to one of the centres. “In the articles, we highlighted the different forms of torture employed and who got arrested and detained in them,” said Mwenda to RAP 21.

In March the newsroom was raided as well during one of the interviews with a former soldier. “There was a mole in the office,” said Mwenda.

In the late April raid, one week before World Press Freedom Day, officials confiscated three computers, four diskettes, one micro-cassette tape and several documents that could be used to justify charges of sedition.

Following the raid Gaaki Kigambo wrote in The Independent, “The besieged journalists and other employees were busy on their phones...as they went about trying to figure out what the raid this time was about until...they were barred from leaving...”

The severity of the raid was only realised with the arrests of three more people: photojournalist Joseph Kiggundu from the independent newspaper Sunday Monitor who was in The Independent’s newsroom at the time and journalists for The Independent Odobo Bichanchi and John Njoroge.

“Today, The Independent stands out as a lone critic and exposure of government excesses,” Oundo told RAP 21.