Daily Monitor reports that brutality against the media started in Arua early last week and continued in Kampala this week.
African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) said in a statement that the incidents highlight a disturbing trend towards repression of freedom of expression.
The brutalised include NTV journalists Herbert Zziwa and Ronald Muwanga.
The two were battered last week by security officers as they reported live from Arua in the violence that followed killing by shooting of Yasin Kawuma, the driver of Kyadondo East Member of Parliament Robert Kyagulanyi, the pop-star known for his stage name as Bobi Wine.
Protesters also smashed President Yoweli Museveni’s car as they took on streets to boycott the ruling NRM campaign for the parliamentary by-election which took place last Wednesday.
Museveni was in Arua campaigning for NRM candidate Nusura Tiperu while Bobi Wine campaigned for independent but opposition-leaning candidate, Kassiano Wadri.
Wadri won over NRM’s Tiperu as winner of the Arua Municipality parliamentary by-election. The election was held while Wadri, Bobi Wine and some other MPs were behind the bars. They were arrested for inciting violence in their last campaign.
More media workers were battered and arrested in Kampala on Monday while covering the #FreeBobiWine political protests in Kampala.
James Akena, a photographer for the English news agency Reuters was beaten by soldiers and detained for several hours. His equipment was also confiscated.
Ronald Galiwango and Juma Kirya, journalists for NTV, Julius Muhumuza (Online), and Observer’s photographer Alfred Ochwo were also beaten.
Videos of the violence against media and protesters have gone viral on social media.
Akena is seen covering the protests in Kisekka Market in downtown Kampala when military men in their uniform battered him using long sticks, warning that “we shall kill you all.”
“I was pushed under the police truck after they had taken away my camera and money. Only the phone survived and when we reached CPS [Kampala Central Police Station], they ordered me to delete all the recordings from the camera but mine was in pieces,” Mr Akena told Daily Monitor yesterday from his hospital bed in Kampala where he was admitted following the beatings.
Many media workers have got scars and swellings resulting from torture they have faced during their coverage of the protests.
More have reported acts of intimidation by allegedly security agencies via phone calls while others say their cameras, phones or computers have been confiscated by men in uniform.
Brig Richard Karemire, the army spokesperson, criticised Tuesday the unprofessional conduct of soldiers who battered journalists while deployed on a joint operation with police to quell the protests in Kampala.
“UPDF wishes to express its displeasure over such behaviour by those individuals and as a result, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) has ordered their arrest and punishment,” he said in a statement.
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