KAMPALA, May 30 (Xinhua) -- As the world is set to mark World No-Tobacco Day on Saturday, anti-tobacco activists here on Friday demonstrated against cigarette advertising and the government's reluctance to enforce laws against public smoking.

    In a petition to Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi, the activists demanded that warnings on cigarette packets cover 50 percent of the principal display areas.

    The warnings should change from "Cigarette Smoking can be Harmful to your Health" to "Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and death", the petition said.

    The activists joined by school children and medical workers marched to British American Tobacco Uganda, the country's biggest producer of cigarettes, and handed a memorandum to the company officials accusing the company of backtracking its social responsibility role.

    "We express our concerns over your continued aggressive marketing and the promotion of tobacco products that, you well know, cause disease, disability and death to all who consume and or get exposed to them including the unborn babies. You have adamantly continued with impunity to put tiny, weak, illegible health warnings on your cigarette packets," the memorandum said.

    They demanded a 20 percent increase in tobacco excise duty, which will increase the country's tax revenues by an estimated 5.2billion shillings (about 3.2 million U.S. dollars) at the same time reduce tobacco consumption.

    They also demanded that duty free tobacco shopping be banned in the country as way of implementing the World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Uganda ratified in 2007.

    "The international empirical literature clearly shows that the most effective and cost effective intervention is an increase in the tax on cigarettes," said a memorandum the activists sent to the Ministry of Finance.

    They also called on the government to enforce the law that bans smoking in public places.

    The WHO estimates that by 2030, 10 million people per year will die from tobacco with 70 percent of these deaths occurring in developing countries.