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Uganda Restores Internet, Keeps Opposition Leader in House Detention

Halima Athumani

   KAMPALA - Uganda's government restored some internet access Monday
   after a five-day blackout during last week's election that saw
   President Yoweri Museveni reelected to a sixth term. The opposition
   National Unity Platform party plans to challenge the results and says
   the military has their leader Bobi Wine under house arrest.

   Around 10:30 a.m. Monday, Ugandans heard their mobile phones ping for
   the first time in five days since the government shut down the
   internet.

   However, social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Twitter and Facebook
   are still offline and can only be accessed via the virtual private
   network.

   Government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo says social media was high on the
   list of possible threats to the election. He says officials regret the
   inconvenience but says they took the right decision.

   "Disinformation had started, with intention to discredit the election,
   with intention to intimidate, with intention to suppress voter turn up,
   with intention to spread hate speech, abuse of candidates directly,
   abuse of political formations you don't agree with. To undermine the
   credibility of the results. We knew, that if we didn't shut social
   media, most likely we would have gone into chaos," he said.

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