VISION GROUP | SECURITY RAID | JOURNALIST KITATTA

KAMPALA - A total of 12 plain-clothed security operatives camped at Vision Group head offices for the greatest part of Thursday (March 10, 2022) in what sources said was a continuous bid to abduct Bukedde journalist Lawrence Kitatta. 

The armed men, wearing masks, hoods, sunglasses, gumboots and overall jackets, pitched camp outside the company’s offices on First Street, Industrial Area, Kampala, as they laid in wait for Kitatta, in vain.

Last week, Kitatta ran to jinja Road Police Station for help after unknown people trailed him. 

Police is yet to release the investigation report. 

At the Vision Group offices Thursday, some of the operatives surveilled the company’s exits on motorcycles without number plates. 

The other muscular operatives stood at the roadside opposite the offices, while others sat in a waiting car, whose engine kept running for most of the afternoon. 

The mean-looking operatives kept communicating on their mobile phones with their eyes fixed on the main gate, which is used for both entry and exist by the institution’s employees. 

“We want to hire a venue for a conference,” said one of the operatives when asked to explain why they patrolled the exists of Vision Group offices. 

Vision Group does not hire venues for conferences at the head office. 

The case  

Accompanied by Vision Group lawyer, Kenneth Ntende, Kitatta opened up a case of threatening his life at Jinja Road police station, under number GEF: 14/2022. 

He also recorded a statement with the police detailing what he was going through and how he was being trailed. 

According to Kitatta, he decided to open up a case after he noticed that some people were trailing him for reasons he did not know. 

On February 17, 2021, Vision Group reporters Henry Ssekanjako (L) and Timothy Murungi (R) were among several other journalists who were brutalised by soldiers. (File Photo)

“On Thursday, February 24, 2022, there was a man who pitched camp near our (Vision Group) offices and he called me by name as I was passing by. I was shocked because I neither knew this man nor had I ever met him. But when I tried to approach him, he simply walked away, which puzzled me,” Kitatta narrated. 

Also read: 👉👉👉 Brutalised Vision journalist narrates ordeal

He suspects the man’s mission could have been to confirm his identity. Later on February 28, 2022, as he was going home after work at around 7:00pm, Kitatta said he met another man riding on a sport bike without a number plate. 

“I was riding a bike and as soon as I passed him, he started following me. When I reached Kyambogo near Coin car bond (along Kampala-Jinja road), the man deliberately knocked my bike. He even looked back to check whether I had fallen down, before he sped off. But I survived,” he told police. 

Kitatta said he again met the same man in Banda, where he had parked his bike, but he simply bypassed him. 

“On reaching Kireka, I branched off to a salon, and after a while, I saw the same man passing while looking around as if he was searching for something. This forced me to take another route to my home,” he said.

How it started 

On February 22, 2022, Daily Monitor published pictures of Kitatta being kicked by a guard attached to the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among. 

The pictures and a video clip showing the same action went viral on social media, with many blaming the Deputy Speaker’s guard for his actions. 

The fracas broke out when Kitatta was covering a group of youth who had gone to the Deputy Speaker’s home, claiming they had been tortured. However, in what appeared to be a dramatic encounter, when security attempted to arrest them, the young men abandoned their clutches and fled. 

The assault of Kitatta comes in the wake of several other cases in which security personnel have brutalised journalists in the course of execution of their work. 

On February 17, 2021, Vision Group reporters Henry Ssekanjako and Timothy Murungi were among several other journalists who were brutalised by soldiers. 

They had gone to cover the National Unity Platform (NUP) president, Robert Kyagulanyi, as he delivered to the United Nations Human Rights office in Kololo a complaint against human rights violations by security against NUP supporters through illegal arrests/abductions and detention, as well as torture.