HRNJ-Uganda Alert: Radio Reporter beaten to death by cyclists

Rakai, 12th/September/2010; Commercial motor cyclists locally known as bodabodas in Rakai district have beaten a Top radio correspondent Paul Kiggundu to death.
Kiggundu joined the Masaka based Top Radio eight months ago as an area for Rakai district in Southern Buganda.

The cyclists pounced on him when he was recording scenes of demolition of the homestead of a suspected motorcycle (bodabodas) robber Frank Kagayi who they also accused of killing their fellow cyclist Sengooba Eddie.

Sengooba was hired by two men on Thursday 9th/09/2010, he was later discovered dead and body dumped at Ntovu village, Nkenge Parish, Kasaali subcounty in Rakai district. Police in Kasensero yesterday –Saturday the 11th/09/2010 arrested the suspects Frank Kagayi and one Muwonge with the deceased’ motorcycle.

Kagayi and Muwonge confessed to having commited the murder and robbery.
It is on this basis that Sengooba’s fellow cyclists descended on Kagayi’s home and razed it to the ground. They never spared Kiggundu the journalist because they suspected him of spying for police in the area. Despite his efforts to identify himself as a journalist, they beat Kiggundu into comma.

He died before he could be rushed to Kalisizo government hospital to get emergency treatment after the area health centre referred him to a major hospital due to over breeding. “This is very wrong because you cannot use injustice to get justice” Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) Board Chairman Robert Ssempala said.

Kiggundu is the second media practitioner to be mobbed up in a period less than eight years after Wilbroad Kasujja a news anchor at a community radio Buwama who was raped and killed in 2004. But sadly, no conclusive investigations have been made and produced.

As a journalist rights body, HRNJ-Uganda condemns in strongest terms possible this act of people taking the law into their hands.

We demand that police should act steadily fast to apprehend and bring all the perpetrators of this mob justice to book.

Kiggundu survived with one wife and four children. May his Soul Rest in Peace.

For more information contact;
Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda)
Kivebulaya Road, Mengo- Bulange, Kampala Opp. St. Marcelino Preparatory School
Tel: +256-414-667627 / +256-701-810079
E-mail: info@hrnjuganda.org
humanrajournalists@yahoo.co.uk
Website: www.hrnjuganda.org
Blog: http//:hrnjuganda.blogpost.com