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Activists against the Ugandan social media tax broadcast calls to loudspeakers calling on users not to pay the tax, playing cat and mouse with the police, witnesses said on Tuesday [19659002]. access to social networks, as well as to Tinder and Grindr dating sites, has been blocked unless users pay a daily fee of 200 shillings (R0.72).
In an unusual protest, a recorded message was broadcast by loudspeakers on Monday. at strategic points across the capital Kampala, according to witnesses.
"Do not pay tax on social media and mobile money transactions," he says.
"It hurts your pocket and drives us into poverty."
Mobile Internet users must enter a code on their phone to prove payment of the fee before they can access the sites.
open opposition from users, some of whom turned to virtual private networks (VPN) to evade tax while others participated in sporadic protests
But an open demonstration in the Ugandan capital Kampala is rare. Dissident voices with tear gas, batons and, in the case of a recent march against the social media tax, live fire
Police intervened to seize the speakers Monday, but witnesses said the protest was continuing on Tuesday. "On Monday, the police confiscated the speakers in Kampala," police spokesman Emilian Kayima told AFP. "We will learn to know who is behind."
Kayima claimed that the unusual protest action was the invention of criminals who wanted to form crowds that would be vulnerable to a terrorist attack, but offered no evidence for his claim.
Kusemererwa, 53, owns a shop in Kampu's commercial district of Kampala, and told AFP that the protesters had set up a sound system outside his business. do not pay the tax on social media, "he said.
"The voice over the recording says that people should rise up against the taxes imposed by the government."
Mechanic Nelson Wabwire, 31, said similar configurations were found elsewhere in the city and confiscated by the police.
"People are now afraid to be identified because the police are brutal, they resort to working quietly," Wabwire said.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said the government would reconsider the tax after an angry opposition, but ministers have since promised to continue collecting the tax.
President Yoweri Museveni justified this accusation by many Ugandans. and should not "give money to foreign companies by talking or even lying" on social networks
© Agence France-Presse
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