“Targeted, tracked, and silenced”, August 11, 2025

In July this year, investigative journalist, Canary Mugume of NBS Television, was attacked on his way home from work. It was late at night when a group of men approached his car, pulled him out, and assaulted him, focusing their blows on his face. They took only his mobile phone, leaving behind his laptop and other valuables. “It looks like that was their goal, just to take the phone because I had the laptop in the car and it wasn’t taken and they seemed to be interested in the phone and also destroying my face,” Mugume told The Independent on Aug.9. He says this was the second time he had lost his phones in such a manner. “Both times, the phones seemed to be the main target.” Two months earlier, in May this year, Mugume tweeted a warning he received via email from his phone manufacturer of a possible hacking attempt into his iPhone. “Apple sent this notification to me, indicating that I am being targeted by a mercenary spyware. Most of these are used by Governments to hack into the phones of journalists, high-profile figures and activists. They last sent this (report) in 2021; there’s a pattern – electoral season,” Mugume tweeted on May 5 this year, complete with a screenshot of the message from Apple. For journalists like Mugume, phones are more than personal devices. They hold months or years of sensitive reporting work, not forgetting valuable contacts, photographs, and documents…

The recent attacks against Mugume are part of a broader pattern documented in a new country report by Unwanted Witness, a civil society organisation that advocates for internet freedoms and digital rights, particularly the right to privacy, digital identity, digital inclusion, and freedom of expression. The study titled: “Surveillance/Spyware: An Impediment to Civil Society, Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in East and Southern Africa,” details how surveillance in Uganda and other countries, including Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe, has evolved into a complex system combining broad monitoring with targeted spyware campaigns. This sophisticated machinery is not only affecting journalists like Mugume but also civil society actors, human rights defenders, and opposition politicians in these countries. The report not only analysed the impact of surveillance and spyware on human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and activists with objectivity and accuracy, but it also utilised desk research and stakeholder interviews. It further assessed the legal and policy framework of the countries under focus… The report found that unchecked surveillance is not only eroding privacy but it is also curtailing free expression, promoting fear, self-censorship, disrupting advocacy, and exposing activists to harassment…

Nalumansi said surveillance is not necessarily a bad thing because “we are all concerned about our national security as a country or as countries,” but citizens are concerned when the surveillance becomes unchecked. “This unchecked surveillance has broader consequences, especially when it comes to the misuse of personal data,” she said. “There is a massive collection of personal data by these different tools, and at the end of the day, this leads to discrimination, persecution of some people, abuses, especially against those who are marginalised.” She added: “We’re seeing an increasing government-led surveillance with the adoption of sophisticated surveillance tools in the form of general surveillance and spyware technologies that have been used to target dissent, journalists, and human rights defenders, especially in jurisdictions where we have authoritarian regimes.” This, Nalumansi said, is different from the general surveillance that targets a huge population at any particular time and in places like roads, which is a common trend in most of the East African countries.

In Uganda, the report documents the chilling effect these measures have had on civil society. It highlights how NGOs are being closed, suspended, or forced to disclose sensitive information. It discusses how journalists like Mugume are facing harassment, arrest, or exile. Some, unfortunately, have resorted to self-censoring to avoid reprisals… Over the past decade, the Ugandan government has invested heavily in surveillance technology, citing security concerns. For instance, the US$126 million Huawei Safe City project has seen installation of hundreds of CCTV cameras with facial recognition capabilities across Kampala Metropolitan Area – Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono districts –all linked to the Uganda Police Force’s “Command Centre.” The government has also introduced digital number plates capable of real-time vehicle location tracking, mandated biometric SIM card registration linked to national IDs, and expanded social media monitoring to identify online critics. Every Ugandan mobile phone user is now required to register their SIM card with a national ID, including fingerprints. Combined with social media monitoring, this database gives security agencies unprecedented power to identify, track, and target critics. These tools, experts say, can access private calls, messages, emails, and location data, often without the target’s knowledge. In other instances, some of those targeted receive hints, thanks to the sophisticated phones…