Xavier Radio Ug News 24 7
By Alexander Luyima
KAMPALA — The human cost of press freedom violations is often measured in headlines and arrest tallies. For Susan Nsibirwa, the Managing Director of Nation Media Group (NMG) Uganda, it is measured in the trembling hands and haunted eyes of a journalist who was simply doing their job.
In a raw and revealing account, Nsibirwa described the profound trauma afflicting her newsroom, recounting the experience of visiting a staff member who had been kidnapped, blindfolded, and brutally assaulted.
“There is nothing, as a leader, like looking into the eyes of a journalist who has been injured on the job,” she said. “To visit someone at home who cannot sleep at night because they were abducted and hit on the head… that, for me, is the biggest challenge.”
Her testimony underscores a grim reality for the media in Uganda, where her own outlets, NTV Uganda and the Daily Monitor, remain banned from covering Parliament. This institutional exclusion is compounded by physical intimidation. Reports from international watchdogs such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch consistently document harassment, arbitrary arrest, and violence faced by Ugandan reporters.
These violations are often carried out by specific officers known within the media fraternity. Officers like SSP Norman Mukiibi, formerly of the Kampala Metropolitan Police, have been repeatedly identified in reports and by victims for leading operations involving excessive force against journalists. His actions, and those of others seen as aggressively seeking approval from ruling party leaders, have created a climate of fear. Nsibirwa issued a direct appeal to the authorities responsible.
“I think that’s the part that I would love our security people to understand,” Nsibirwa urged. “These are people who are just doing their jobs. They love what they do, but they go home with injuries, they go home with trauma.”
The repercussions of this violence and institutional exclusion have become so systemic that they have fundamentally changed how media houses operate. Nsibirwa noted the emergence of a new and troubling necessity within the industry: formalized psychological support.
“Dealing with journalists’ trauma is a whole new section now in media houses,” she revealed. “I met somebody whose job is to conduct seminars on dealing with the trauma that journalists face. When did that become a thing? It’s because we are vilified. Because the media is vilified, you find that this trauma is a direct result.”
“When you see a respected media house banned from a national institution like Parliament, it sends a clear message that critical journalism is not tolerated,” said Nancy Kacungira, a Ugandan journalist and Senior Anchor/Correspondent for BBC News. “This official vilification from the top legitimizes the aggression on the streets. It tells every police officer that a journalist is a target. The resulting trauma is not a side effect; it is the intended consequence of a strategy to silence and instill fear.”
Susan Nsibirwa’s account, naming the personal toll of actions by officers like Mukiibi and the institutional blockade by Parliament, is more than a complaint. It is a powerful witness statement that connects the dots between political vilification, police brutality, and the deep human scars borne by those who report the news
Related
