Daily Monitor
Tuesday May 04 2021
Dear Tingasiga;
I write this note on May 3. It is World Press Freedom Day 2021. This is a special one, for we celebrate 30years since the UNESCO Windhoek Declaration for the Development of a Free, Independent and Pluralistic Press.
Most countries, including Uganda, embraced and endorsed this declaration as part of a fundamental agenda for good governance and progress. Like many international declarations, to which Uganda is signatory, this one gathers dust in some forgotten file, its contents regularly mocked by the very rulers whose delegates appended signatures to the agreement.
Press freedom in Uganda continues its residence on the wish list of journalists and true patriots, even as the rulers hammer away at it with a vigour that surpasses that of the “buffoon regimes” they overthrew decades ago. We are told that the proliferation of broadcast, electronic and print media, complete with commentaries like mine, represents a “fre