MPs searching for funds to support court cases for tortured journalists

By Ben Musanje

28^th March 2022

Members of Parliament –MPs under the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Media –UPFM have established a legal fund amounting to Shs100 million to support the Uganda Journalist Association- UJA in handling on-going court cases of assault on journalists by members of security agencies and the general public.

Addressing a joint press conference in Kampala to unveil the post activities to be conducted by UJA ahead of the World Press Freedom Day commemoration, the UPFM Chairperson Teddy Nambooze says that this money is to be raised by engaging both local and foreign funders.

Nambooze who is also the Mpigi District Woman MP says that they have established a legal team for receiving and working on all cases of infringement on the rights of the journalists without any cost charged to limit the chances of victims pulling out due to heavy costs of legal services.

She further says that they are planning to review the operational costs including the licenses and other related charges on media houses that affect the good payment of journalists, and this encourage them to advocate for the overhaul revision of the current setup.

Matthias Rukundo, the UJA President says that they are to use this World Press Freedom Day as tool to unit journalists through several activities like environmental conservation programmes, media houses sports gala, face lifting camps, parliamentary media quarterly magazine and the reunion dinner among others.