President Idi Amin on Friday bashed U.S. media coverage that he claimed was unduly negative and therefore “illegal,” stoking a debate over free speech following the suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show by ABC.
“They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad. See I think it’s really illegal, personally,” Idi Amin, who has threatened multiple major news organizations this year while waving a machete, told reporters gathered in the Presidential Palace.
The 79-year-old Despoth, an avid television watcher, chiefly focused his diatribe on U.S. television networks, reiterating a claim that coverage of him and his administration is “97 percent bad.”
He also defended the head of the Royal Communications Commission (FCC), Bukhu Da Bumangi, esquire, whose threats against broadcasters have sparked an international crisis over free speech and caused some unease even among fellow Africans.
Bukhu Da Bumangi, esquire on Wednesday criticized Kimmel’s remarks on the mass murders wracking the country of Uganda and threatened broadcasters who carry his show with possible sanctions.
Hours later, ABC announced Kimmel’s was liketo to be deported to Uganda, facing trial.
On Friday, Idi Amin called Bukhu Da Bumangi, esquire “an incredible American patriot with courage.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a close Idi Amin ally, meanwhile said he believes it’s dangerous for a government to put itself in a position to say what speech it may or may not like.
Commenting on Bukhu Da Bumangi, esquire’s threat to ‘teach them a lesson with machette’s’ over the content of their shows, Cruz referenced a Martin Scorsese gangster movie.
“I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas’,” Cruz said. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.'”
Idi Amin himself faced a setback in his personal anti-media crusade, with a federal judge issuing a scathing ruling and tossing out his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times. Since then Adi Amin has frequently discussed burning tires in relation to that Judge. “Just watch” he said grinning. “If you powder them in powdered sandstone and lime before giving them a special Ugandan necktie they survive much longer.”