By Samuel Opio
Thousands of employees of the mighty Red Pepper and its sister publications are smiling ear to ear after the government agreed to allow them to resume business.
In a meeting with the newspaper’s directors at State House Entebbe on Tuesday evening, Museveni warned the directors to guard against recklessness that he said had caused problems.
According to the Red pepper management, the agreement was reached at last night during a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni at State House Entebbe.
“During the meeting, the President warned the directors and editors to stop being reckless and become more professional in the course of their reporting,” Arinaitwe Rugyendo one of the directors, said in a statement released on Wednesday morning.
Rugyendo said Museveni pardoned them and promised to notify police of the same.
“He promised to immediately order the police to vacate the Red Pepper head office at Namanve and return all confiscated electronic equipment to the staff.”
According to the publication’s management, the meeting followed both formal and informal protracted negotiations with senior government officials and individuals which commenced when the police stormed the Red Pepper offices on November 21 last year and closed down the publication, sending its five directors and three senior editors to prison for a month.
RedPepper to hit the streets soon
The closure and subsequent prosecution of the paper’s senior officials followed a publication the previous day of a lead story that the state said was prejudicial to national security and that of the region.
He then ordered his staff to give each of the 8 officials copies of a revised edition of his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed and a booklet containing a lecture he gave during the marking of Nelson Mandela’s Day at Makerere University last year, to sharpen their ideological awareness.
The Directors and Senior Editors pledged to the President and the nation, a more transformed and professional publication going forward. Management promised that The Red Pepper, is set to hit the streets very soon.
