The government of Uganda has been criticized for shutting down the internet prior the general election that took place last week on 14th January 2021.
According to government officials, the internet was shut down to avoid possible demonstrations trigged by fake news that is spread through social media.
The general election went on majorly peacefully and the incumbent Yoweri Museveni was announced the winner for the presidential election with a 57% win against this closest challenger Robert Kyagulanyi who got 34%.
Most of the opposition presidential candidates dismissed the election results as rigged and accused president Museveni of shutting down the interne so that he could cheat without ‘witnesses’.
A number of other international and local critics have also termed the internet shut down as a step against human rights and democracy.
James Onen aka Fatboy, a renown radio presenter during the FatBoy show on RX Radio said that the shutdown was an infringement on people’s rights which is the right to access to information and the right to communicate.
“It does not matter if the internet shutdown helped in controlling possible riots, our rights as citizens were trampled on and that was wrong on so many levels,” he said.
Uganda went into a five days internet shut down from 13th of January to 18th January 2021.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy and Oliver Najjuma every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio
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