When I first heard of the story about the murder of Marwa Sherbini, a veiled (and pregnant) Egyptian woman, as she prepared to give evidence in a German courtroom against a man who physically assaulted her early this week I couldn’t comprehend the situation.

I later read the story over the news sites and I wondered how this could happen. I have heard enough stories from friends, colleagues who have lived in Germany and how they faced racial discrimination and sometimes abuses. In one of the stories story my friends were on a bus ride and some German couple had a child who started crying at the sight of my friends in the bus. A few metres from their stage, the bus driver decided he couldn’t stand the noise made by the child and he ordered these African women off the bus. My friend told me this story and I remember wondering what I would have done. I told her that getting off the bus when it’s public she was giving in to racism. And other stories from German include stepping in a shop and people refuse to serve you but Sherbini’s story was just too much to take in. And this racism is not limited to Germany but my thinking is how can a country that was the epic center of the horrors of Hitler still have such wide spread elements of extremism more than 60 years down the road. But to also think that this poor Egyptian was murdered in court room where people should be seeking justice sends Europe not just German a warning that this segregation is headed to destruction. When I read her story, I couldn’t remember any other horrifying story that I have read. This story reminded chilling stories by former captives of the LRA rebels and how they were forced to kill their families but the cruelty is the only similarity. The murder in German was right inside what is supposed to be the temple of justice. Of course many in German are not this racial but the attitude towards Islam or to some races is still an issue to watch in Europe.

I read a good post on the murder on Huffington Post

Daily Monitor reports that a number of employees at the Directorate of Public Prosecutions were yesterday a subject of criminal investigation after thieves gained mysterious entry into their Kampala headquarters and stole records of high-profile cases, among them Global Fund files.

Justice John Bosco Katutsi is expected to pass judgment on Tuesday against Ms Annaliza Mondon and Ms Elizabeth Ngororano both directors of Valued Health, a local NGO accused of mismanaging Shs18.7m from the Fund. Former Health minister Jim Muhwezi and his ex-deputies; Mr Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha are awaiting trial for allegedly misappropriating money meant for HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria treatment as well as immunisation.

Well, there is a mystery to this whole robbery of files. It is really embarrassing that a whole DPP’s office can be raided by thieves. Hope investigations will deliver an answer but the question is if Global Fund money could be stolen and used for all sorts of personal projects with no one raising an alarm until it was too late how you expect files on the cases to remain interact. The truth the Global Fund money incriminated a lot of people and its difficult to point who is more threatened.

We will even spend more money on investigations as we see shortages in the delivery of services to fight Malaria, TB and AIDS. The country has had a shortage of TB drugs for months now and we can afford to make it easy for GF files to be stolen.

I love the ability of the writer to capture problems facings most ugandans like poor health care delivery, falling prices of coffee and the seasoned moves by the state to stifle freedom of expression by dismissing demonstratios. This is one of the few songs that go beyond the wata gwani, bad man, love songs that seem to be the norm.

According to the results of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2008 Uganda ranks 101 in the world in democratisation. The index shows that globally the spread of democracy has stagnated after decades-long global trend in democratisation.

Uganda has performed worst in political participation scoring just 3.9 out of ten. In east Africa, Uganda comes behind Tanzania but is above Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda is the only authoritarian regime in the region.

Here’s the link to the Index, http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf

With less than 20 months to the preisdential elections and more than half way into the year 2009, do you think Uganda has improved on the 2008 indicators?