KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda is launching a drive against online pornography that critics condemn as a diversion from deeper problems of graft, unemployment and crumbling social services facing President Yoweri Museveni. The campaign is the latest salvo in a culture war between  conservatives fighting what they see as foreign moral influences promoting criminality and a more liberal, often younger population.   This is an invasion, it s Western culture,  said Simon Lokodo, a 59-year-old Catholic priest who serves as minister of ethics and integrity.  Over consumption of pornography ... the consequences are very dire,  he told Reuters this week.  The government had released 2 billion shillings ($556,000) to his office to combat online pornography. Some money would go to pornography-blocking software, he said.  Some Ugandans expressed anger at the cost of the ban, saying it served only to divert public attention from failures of President Museveni s government. Critics of Museveni, who has ruled for 31 years, say he presides over widespread corruption and human rights abuses.  Parliament is considering a removing a constitutional age cap to allow Museveni to serve longer. He is also widely considered to be grooming his son, a presidential adviser and the former commander of an elite military unit, to succeed him.  Andrew Karamagi, a rights activist and lawyer in Kampala, said he could not understand government obsession with  what people watch, who sleeps with whom, how and when , while it struggled to fund social services such as hospitals and schools. Uganda s only radiotherapy machine broke down last year and hasn t been replaced due to funding shortages. Drug shortages are common in public hospitals where and in dilapidated public schools poorly-paid teachers often don t show up for class.   The regime ... does not have the moral authority to combat pornography,  Karamagi said.  They are themselves an obscenity.   
Uganda in anti-online pornography drive seen by critics as diversion