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By ROBERT KAMUKAMA
KAMPALA, Uganda|SHIFTMEDIA| As the nation gears for polls in January, media censuring seems to have begun.
The latest we can reveal is the deportation of two foreign journalists.
The duo report for the Canadian based international media house, CBC News.
According to the CBC News European Correspondent Margaret Evans, their journalists, Lily Martin and J.F Bisson were ordered out of Uganda on Friday last week, despite being authorized by the Uganda Media Centre to cover news around the country.
Evans said in the tweet, “#Ugandan gov’t avoiding outside scrutiny of Jan elections already. We were deported Friday even though we had official media credentials. Here @lily_martin & @JF_BISSON 10 hours into detention before being put on a plane,”
One of the two journalists, Lily Martin said that the pair held official press credentials to carry out their trade in the country and their deportations suffocates foreign scrutiny of the upcoming 2021 general elections.
The CBC News however was not clear about the circumstances leading to their deportation.
In a reply, government spokesperson, Ofwono Opondo said Uganda does not need any foreign scrutiny into its internal matters.
“Do we really need you to scrutinize our electoral process to qualify as credible? Uganda reserves the right to admit foreign persons including journalists. Good stay where you are,” Opondo said.
We gathered that government was not impressed by how the journalists especially covered the recent #FreeBobi Wine protests that left over 50 people shot dead.
President Museveni has over time during his campaigns warned the media (especially foreign) from reporting negatively and blowing events out of proportion.