Popular Ugandan TV station NTV has been banned from covering presidential events after showing mages of an apparently asleep Museveni, during a parliamentary hearing.
The government media centre manager Dennis Katungi has insisted that the president was not fast asleep as reported, but had in fact been meditating.
“The president has his habits,” he told AFV. “He meditates and they know it, and they still go out and say he was sleeping.”
The long standing president is no stranger to issuing bans on various media outlets. Last year he shut down two major independent newspapers for ten days after they reported that army generals had been arguing about whether or not Museveni’s son should take his place when the time comes.
On the sleeping incident, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo accused NTV of “a lack of professionalism” and stated: “We have suspended their coverage of the president as we reconsider our relationship with them.”
President Museveni is himself facing sanctions from the US, as punishment for the government’s anti-gay laws, which they have refused to budge on.
The White House has withdrawn funding for various projects within the country, including planned aviation exercise that was sponsored by the US-military. They have also banned any Ugandans involved in actions against homosexuals from entering the country.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden wrote: “The Department of State is taking measures to prevent entry into the United States by certain Ugandan officials involved in serious human rights abuses, including against LGBT individuals”
In addition, the nomination of Uganda’s foreign secretary Sam K Kutesa as president of the UN general assembly was denounced by US senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She said that it would be “disturbing to see the foreign minister of a country that passed an unjust, harsh and discriminatory law” in such a post.
The law, which was passed officially passed in February punishes homosexuality with life imprisonment.
