SECTOR 1 accused them of giving people room to abuse him. He reminded them of existing laws, warned that “I am going to shut down your radios”, and announced that he had established a Monitoring Team to keep an eye on radio He [President] … programmes. After the meeting, some radio warned that “I am owners told their producers not to allow certain going to shut down your people to appear on their talk shows anymore. radios” The right to free expression has since come under further pressure. The government has put in place new control mechanisms: (1) The offices of the Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) have set up units to monitor media. In districts such as Jinja and Soroti, RDCs have sent people from their offices to ask radio station managers to provide names, titles, phone numbers, and residential addresses of journalists under the guise of monitoring security. This is done, or is meant to be done, without the knowledge of the journalists. These same people also listen in to political talk shows in particular and file reports. Sometimes, they even prevent opponents of the government from speaking on radio. Main opposition leader Kizza Besigye was to appear on Kira FM in Jinja and the RDC called in to cancel the Q&A show. The RDC’s office told the station to refund the money Dr Besigye had paid for the show. If that were not possible, the same office was willing to compensate the station. Dr Besigye went to another station (Victoria FM) in the same town and paid UShs 400,000 (US$200) for a 2-hour show. The managers were then summoned to the RDC’s office to explain what Dr Besigye had said. (2) The police have established a Media Offences Department. At one point this department submitted more than 100 cases against the media, mostly The Red Pepper tabloid, to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in a single year. The DPP, however, declined to take them up. It is instructive that these cases were not brought before the regulatory bodies, the Media Council and/or the Broadcasting Council. There is also a Cabinet sub-committee looking into ways of further regulation of the media. From 10-12 September 2009, riots broke out in Kampala following a stand-off between the central government led by President Yoweri Museveni and the authorities of the Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda’s most populous region.2 According to the official count, 27 people died, mainly from gunshot wounds. In the midst of the riots, the government, through the broadcasting regulator, the Broadcasting Council, shut down four FM radio stations. The stations – 2 See endnote, p.73 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER UGANDA 2010 15