Dr Stellah Nyanzi has expressed concerns over the assaults made against the female journalists by Bobi Wine’s security guards.
While in Lwengo district last weekend during a burial ceremony, Achileo Kivumbi, the security provider of Mr Bobi Wine, reportedly hurt three journalists in disguise of guarding his boss.
Radio Simba’s Margaret Kayondo, Gertrude Mutyaba of NTV, and Zainabu Namusaazi Sengendo attached to NBS TV fell victims on duties as the muscular guard wearing black goggles violently thrashed them.
In addition to blows and kicks against media personnel, the bodyguard also allegedly destroyed their gadgets, including cameras and recorders, in the scuffle.
Until now these female reporters don’t know what crime they had committed by going to offer their services to Bobi Wine and other politicians at the funeral. Making it worse, neither the NUP leadership nor Bobi as a person has come out to say sorry to the victims.
Dr Stella Nyanzi while on her social media platforms, decried Bobi Wine for normalising human rights abuse as he couldn’t command his security crew to respect the duties of the journalists.
“Yesterday, Bobi Wine contemptuously withdrew his five-year case from the tribunal of Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) because it lacked the independence to hear his case. He claimed that while the UHRC is empowered by the constitution to protect human rights, it instead violates these very rights,” Stellah Nyanzi writes on her social media handle.
“While he is demanding for justice from the UHRC, he is at the same time normalising the beating up women journalists and breaking of their cameras,” She said.
Nyanzi condemned the unlawful action, describing it as 6 of double standards.
“As a feminist from Masaka district who trained to he a journalist, I condemn the violent hooliganism and misogynistic brutality of Robert Kyagulanyi’s body guards who beat up women journalists who were merely doing their jobs,” she added.
The assaulted journalists belong to the Greater Masaka Journalists’ Association (GREMAJA).
On Monday May 20, 2024, the angry leaders of GREMAJA demanded justice for their colleagues threatening to deny coverage to any NUP activities in Masaka.
They sought compensation of the journalists’ respective gadgets destroyed by the bodyguard.
