Photo claiming journalist shot dead during Bobi Wine arrest not true

A photo that has been circulating on social media claiming that a Ugandan journalist was shot dead by police is false.

The photo, which is also embedded in a Facebook  Post and Twitter Post, indicates that the journalist died after being roughed up by police while covering National Unity Platform presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi, famously known as Bobi Wine.

The photo was also widely shared on WhatsApp platforms. 

The Star’s fact-check desk, using google search tools, established that the photo was taken in 2015.

According to Human Rights Network for Journalists Uganda- HRJNU, the journalist is identified as Isaac Kugonza.

The organisation said the journalist then working with Delta TV, a local television channel, was attacked while covering a scuffle surrounding efforts to arrest the Lord Mayor of Kampala City, Erias Lukwago, in November 16, 2015.

Police had fired teargas, rubber and live bullets to disperse Lukwago’s supporters who were opposed to efforts by police to block him from reaching the electoral commission headquarters in Kampala to return his mayoral nomination papers.

 In an online Article, the journalist was shot by police on the head and rushed to Mulago National Referral hospital in critical condition.

The article said blood was oozing from his head and spate in the mouth with his editor Prossy Margaret Kisitu saying that his skull had been cracked.

He was the third journalist to be shot while covering political events in less than two months. 

But Police Spokesperson Fred Enanga while dismissing the claims said the journalist was hit with a stone hurled at the police by rowdy protesters and not by a bullet.

We further established that the photo of a camera stained with blood was taken by a Reuters photojournalist in 2017 after an explosion in Mogadishu Somalia. 

The star, therefore, concludes the claims that the incident happened recently during the arrest of Bobi Wine is FALSE.