Uganda: Sedition law must be abolished

The law of sedition should be obsolete in democratic societies, warns ARTICLE 19, who supports the petition submitted last week to Uganda's Constitutional Court by journalist Andrew Mwenda which challenges the constitutionality of the country's sedition law. The law of sedition is the crime of speaking words against the state, its basic premise being that it is wrong to criticize public figures or institutions. Mwenda, Political Editor at the Daily Monitor, is currently on trial for using words with an intention of bringing "into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of the President, the government as by law established or the Constitution" during his live talk show "Tonight With Andrew Mwenda" on 93.3 KFM on August 10.