After negotiating with the government for over two month, The Pepper Publications has finally been allowed to resume business on orders of President Museveni.
“The government of Uganda has agreed to allow The Red Pepper and its sister publications resume business.
“After a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni at State House Entebbe, Tuesday night, His Excellency pardoned the Company Directors and its Senior Editors and promised to immediately order the police to vacate the Pepper head office at Namanve and return all confiscated electronic equipment to the company,” Reads the Announcement issued by the Pepper Publications Ltd Management.
This website understands that on November 21, 2017, Uganda Police led by Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander CP Frank Mwesigwa put The Pepper Publications Offices in Namanve under siege over a recently published story.
A search warrant was issued, all workers were instructed to stop publication and handover their gadgets that include phones, Laptops and Ipads. The premises have been declared a Crime scene.
5 directors and 3 Editors were arrested and taken to Nalufenya before being remanded to Luzira Prisons a week later.
Below is the full announcement issued by The Pepper Publications Ltd Management
The government of Uganda has agreed to allow The Red Pepper and its sister publications resume business.
After a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni at State House Entebbe, Tuesday night, His Excellency pardoned the Company Directors and its Senior Editors and promised to immediately order the police to vacate the Pepper head office at Namanve and return all confiscated electronic equipment to the company.
The meeting followed both formal and informal protracted negotiations with senior government officials and individuals which commenced when the police stormed the Red Pepper offices on November 21 last year and closed down the publication, sending its five directors and three senior editors to prison for a month.
The closure and subsequent prosecution of the paper’s senior officials, followed a publication the previous day of a lead story that the state said was prejudicial to national security and that of the region.
During the meeting at State House Entebbe, H.E the President warned the Directors and Editors to stop being reckless and become more professional in the course of their reporting.
He immediately ordered his staff to give each of the 8 officials copies of a revised edition of his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed and a booklet containing a lecture he gave during the marking of Nelson Mandela’s Day at Makerere University last year, to sharpen their ideological awareness
The Directors and Senior Editors pledged to the President and the nation, a more transformed and professional publication going forward.
As the formal process to reopen the newspaper that has been under police siege for two months gets underway, the ground is now set for The Red Pepper, Uganda’s most influential newspaper, to hit the streets very very soon.
