MAPPING THE FREEDOM OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION IN UGANDA A Report By Ellady Muyambi Executive Director, Historic Resources Conservation Initiatives (HRCI), Plot 398, Kalerwe- Gayaza Road, Ark Building, Block 5 (Next to Total Petrol Station) P.O Box 34407 Kampala, Uganda, Tel: +256-41-4-532676, Mob: +256-71-2-213888, Fax: +256-414-533384 E-mail: historicresources11gmail.com, [email protected] Skype: ellady.muyambi Submitted to The Arterial Network Union House, 2nd Floor, 25 Commercial Street, Cape Town, 8001 December, 2011 Mapping the Freedom of Creative Expression in Uganda By Ellady Muyambi TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents........................................................................................................................2 Glossary.......................................................................................................................................5 List of Figures.............................................................................................................................7 List of Tables...............................................................................................................................8 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations......................................................................................9 Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................13 Executive Summary.................................................................................................................14 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION...................................................................................19 1.0 Background.........................................................................................................................19 1.1 Purpose of the Study..........................................................................................................21 1.2 Objectives of the Study......................................................................................................22 1.3 Methodology.......................................................................................................................23 CHAPTER TWO: CREATIVE EXPRESSION IN UGANDA........................................25 2.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................................25 2.1. Language and Literary Arts...........................................................................................25 2.2 Performing Arts.................................................................................................................25 2.2.1 Uganda’s Music..............................................................................................................26 2.3 Visual Arts and Handicrafts............................................................................................28 2.4 Indigenous Knowledge....................................................................................................28 2.5 Cultural beliefs, traditions and values...........................................................................28 2.6 Religion...............................................................................................................................29 2.7 Cultural Sites, Monuments and Antiquities..................................................................29 2 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS...........................................................................................31 3.0 Introduction.........................................................................................................................31 3.1 Uganda’s ratification of international instruments that promote and protect freedom of creative expression...............................................................................................31 3.2 Uganda’s constitution and its protection – or not – of freedom of creative expression..................................................................................................................................36 3.3 Other existing law (s) that govern (s)/affect(s) freedom in producing or distributing art in all its forms (film, theatre, music, visual art, literature, dance, etc)...............................................................................................................................................37 3.4 Legal mechanism – national, regional or local – that plays a censorship role with regard to the freedom of creative expression and distribution.........................................43 3.5 Laws and/or legal mechanism, that control to seek to censor the media – television, radio, print, web, etc – thereby potentially impacting directly or indirectly on the arts..................................................................................................................................45 3.6 Concrete examples of how artists have been, or are affected by the above laws............................................................................................................................................53 3.7 Religious and/or traditional laws that impact negatively on freedom of creative expression in Uganda..............................................................................................................56 3.8 Concrete examples of how artists have been, or are affected by the above laws in Uganda.......................................................................................................................................58 3.9 Ways in which artists are censored or have their freedoms adversely affected that are not legally or culturally based e.g. political or other forms of intimidation.............60 3.10 Ways in which accessing public funds or other perks are used to intimidate or censor artists..............................................................................................................................61 3.11 Contact details of human rights organisations active in Uganda including international, regional, national and local organisations...................................................63 3.12 Contact details of arts organisations working in the field of human rights or in defence and promotion of human rights..............................................................................92 3.13 Contact details of media (journalists, newspapers, bloggers, etc) working to promote or defend human rights.........................................................................................101 3 3.14 Concrete examples of artists who have suffered under the contravention of freedom of expression by political authorities, religious authorities, cultural practices, economic or other forms of censorship and fellow artists or arts organisations...........................................................................................................................107 CHAPTER FOUR: OBSERVATIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................................................110 4.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................................110 4.1 Observations.....................................................................................................................110 4.2 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................110 4.3 Recommendations............................................................................................................110 REFERENCES........................................................................................................................112 4 GLOSSARY Aesthetic value: Value associated with visual quality or appreciation that the individual or community derives from the beauty of an object, property or idea. Cultural Industries: Business, activities involved in the production of creative products which convey ideas, messages, symbols, opinions and information of moral and aesthetic value. Beliefs: Shared ideas about how the world operates. These may be interpretations of the past, explanation of the present, or predictions of the future, which are based on common sense, folk wisdom, religion, science or a combination of these. Cultural Sites: Natural and man-made works that are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view Cultural Tourism: Consumption of culture through experiencing cultural environments whether in the form of tangible heritage like sites, monuments, visual arts, crafts, material settlements or intangible heritage like values, traditions, beliefs and lifestyles. Culture: Culture includes both tangible and intangible heritage which is varied, complex and in constant evolution. Culture is a whole complex of distinctive, spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize society or social groups. It includes not only the arts and letters but also modes of life, fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions, habits and behaviors. In this Report, Culture is defined as “the sum total of the ways in which a society preserves, identifies, organizes, sustains and expresses itself. Handicrafts : Works of the hand resulting from human thoughts, needs and conceptions from nature. Handicrafts portray the thoughts, beliefs and