22 Oct 13 | Africa, News and features, Politics and Society
In June 2013, police and protesters clashed at the offices of the Daily Monitor, Kampala. Picture Isaac Kasamani/Demotix
In the age of technology with high-speed Internet access and smart phones, it is sometimes easy to imagine that all journalists’ working lives are the same: deadlines, insufficient resources, worrying about the threats of digital media and the race to break news.
In some ways these concerns are indeed universal. However, what journalists in North America and Europe hardly ever have to worry about is their basic right to report the news. It is true that in a post-Wikileaks and News of the World journalistic environment, all reporters have had to consider their fundamental role in providing news and information and analysis ethically. However, in Africa many journalists find themselves carefully tiptoeing through minefields of media laws which limit their ability to report accurately and truthfully on the news of the day, particularly when reporting on activities of the powerful in government.
Recently in Swaziland, a journalist has been charged with contempt of court for reporting the fundamental issue of whether or not the Chief Justice is fit to hold office, given that he is the subject of impeachment proceedings back in his own country, Lesotho. Several Zambian journalists were brought to court earlier this year, initially accused of sedition. In Ethiopia, journalists are serving time in prison, sentenced for threatening the state with their reports.
Besides individual actions taken against journalists, whole media enterprises are also at risk. In Tanzania, the two newspapers Mwananchi and Mtanzania have been suspended by the unilateral action of the Minister of Information citing breach of the peace concerns – Mwananchi was reporting on new salary structures in the government. Earlier this year, the newsroom of the Ugandan newspaper Daily Monitor was under siege for over a week, while police was trying to find letters that were exchanged between editors and a source.
There is no doubt that much state action against journalists and media houses is unconstitutional. However, there is also no doubt that Africa’s media laws do make provision for draconian action to be taken against journalists and publications.
The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s Media Programme has recently published a two-volume Media Law Handbook for Southern Africa, written by Justine Limpitlaw. The handbook is available for free download on the internet. One of the most important aims of the handbook is simply to provide information about what the law is in a number of southern African countries. Statutes are often not available electronically and many journalists simply have no idea about what the laws governing the media are.
A key characteristic of many southern African countries is a media law landscape with a relatively benign liberal constitution at the apex. All constitutions protect freedom of expression to some extent. However, very few changes have been made to media legislation to ensure that the legislation accords with the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Despite oft-expressed anger at the colonial era and its on-going repercussions for the continent, African political elites have essentially retained colonial era media laws as is.
One only has to list many in-force statutes to note that African media law appears to have stultified in the early or mid-20th century. Both Lesotho’s and Swaziland’s Sedition legislation dates back to 1938. Swaziland’s Cinematograph Act is from 1920. Many countries’ Penal Codes date back to the 1960s – prior to their independence from Colonial powers. These Penal Codes criminalise many forms of expression including defamation, insult and false news, and provide for significant jail sentences.
Sadly few attempts have been made to update African media laws. On the rare occasion where a country has engaged in media law reform, the results have been decidedly mixed. South Africa’s attempt to update apartheid-era security laws has been roundly condemned for promoting governmental secrecy at the expense of the public interest.
There is hope. In 2010, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights adopted Resolution 169 on Repealing Criminal Defamation Laws in Africa. The resolution calls on states parties to repeal criminal defamation and insult laws which impede freedom of speech. In May 2013, the Pan African Parliament adopted the Midrand Declaration on Press Freedom in Africa. The Pan African Parliament resolved to launch a campaign entitled “Press Freedom for Development and Governance: Need for Reform” in all five regions of Africa. These initiatives by intergovernmental African organisations are historic and represent a real opportunity for media law reform. There is also significant pressure being brought to bear on a number of countries to enact access to information laws.
The objective link between a free press and accelerated development is clear. Sadly governments appear all too willing to forego development in their desire to retain political control. Journalists are under real threat in many countries in Africa and the threats are not only from rogue police officers but also from ordinary police officers and other state functionaries merely carrying out the letter of the law.
The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung believes that the media Law handbook could act as a catalyst for bringing together journalists, media owners, members of the judiciary, government officials and media activists to have a serious look at African media law with a view to taking it out of the colonial era. Together with the Pan African Parliament’s and the Comission’s efforts, this is a great opportunity to make Africa a place where journalists can report the news of the day accurately and fairly without fear of arrest and imprisonment.
This article was originally posted on 22 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
16 Apr 12 | Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
In November last year, Ngor Garang was illegally detained and repeatedly tortured for 18 days in South Sudan’s national security headquarters, located in the country’s interim capital, Juba. His crime: he was the chief editor for a newspaper that published a column criticizing the marriage of President Salva Kiir’s daughter to an Ethiopian national.
In the wake of the incident, authorities shut the doors on Garang’s English-language daily Destiny. Six months on, Destiny remains out of circulation, banned by a South Sudanese government increasingly chided for its suppression of independent media.
Garang, however, is continuing the fight. Upon release he leveled toxic criticism against those responsible for his detention. Now writing for the Sudan Tribune, he still practices the trade despite being routinely targeted by state officials. In late March, he was dismissed from a ruling party council meeting in an incident authorities deemed inadvertent.
“These people thought they could silence us by intimidating me and breaking the law,” Garang told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in the aftermath of his detention. “But I told them even if they killed me they could not kill the freedom of the press.”
When South Sudan officially seceded from the north in July 2011, international and domestic parties alike had high hopes for press liberty in the world’s newest country. But that prospect has not come to fruition. South Sudanese journalists like Garang routinely face harassment, intimidation and violence for pursuing stories that tackle everything from corruption to security concerns. Some analysts anticipate an exacerbating situation.
“What is particularly disappointing is that the environment for press freedom has declined and deteriorated since secession,” said Robert Herman, Sub-Sahara Africa expert at Freedom House. “There are serious concerns about commitment on the side of the government of Salva Kiir. Despite what they’ve said and promised to donors, we’ve seen backsliding.”
A relatively muzzled media is not the only problem South Sudan is struggling to address. In the nine months to follow country’s historic partition, South Sudan has faced enduring crisis. Ethnic clashes in remote areas are common. More notably of late, South Sudan is embroiled in a row with the north over oil revenue sharing and territorial sovereignty. South Sudan shut down oil exports in January and has since felt the economic repercussions. Oil accounts for 98 percent of the poverty-stricken country’s state revenue. Since November, inflation has skyrocketed.
The disputes have also erupted in the largest scale clashes between the two national armies since independence. Last week, South Sudan seized a major oil field in territory the international community recognizes as north of the demarcation line. South Sudan claims the move was in response to weeks of aerial bombardment targeting its oil assets. Observes say the crisis may lead to greater government oppression in the south.
“Now that were getting to more confrontation with the north, my fear is the small freedoms that South Sudanese have received will be quashed,” said CPJ Africa consultant Tom Rhodes.
That would not be an uncommon consequence of escalating conflict and tensions. In conflict arenas throughout the globe, infringements on liberties are pervasive.
“When there are those kinds of external threats it creates an environment that is less conducive to the free flow of information and more constrained in terms of criticism,” said Herman.
Media legislation in South Sudan has been in the works for years but parliament has failed to pass a series of three bills. The legislation in its current form would significantly enhance press freedoms, according to observers. But those freedoms may prove elusive.
“The future of press freedom in South Sudan is uncertain especially with the delay of the media bills,” said Edward Terso, Editor of the Juba-based weekly Daily Mentor, in an email response to questions. “We have the feeling that the media bills will be passed only after deleting clauses that favour freedom of journalists. There is fear that more powers will be given to the security to control or even muzzle the press.”
The legislation faces resistance from the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) dominated parliament and the executive branch, according to analysts. Rhodes says the SPLM’s aversion to opposition is typical of other rebel movements that eventually claim the reigns of power. North and South Sudan engaged in two enduring civil wars after colonial powers departed the country. The most recent 22-year conflict ended in 2005 with the SPLM and the Khartoum government brokering a deal that fostered partition.
“The problem is you have a military government taking over a country that during the war had only sympathetic voices. They’re used to PR, not critical voices. That’s new to them,” said Rhodes. “Like other former rebel movements throughout the continent, the SPLM assumed the role of liberators. And then they don’t like to take any criticism.”
Despite state suppression, the media landscape in South Sudan is expanding. In recent months and years, the number of independent and private media houses operating in the country, from web-based content to print dailies to broadcasting, continues to rise. Media ownership, however, is an issue.
“When you look at the majority of the owners of the publications and broadcasters, they are either owned or heavily sympathetic to the SPLM,” said Rhodes. “So you have to wonder how many unbiased journalists there are in South Sudan.”
Analysts say corruption is endemic in South Sudan. This is, however, one of the most inaccessible areas of reporting for journalists. With the massive influx of international aid entering the country on a daily basis, the South Sudanese population would benefit substantially from greater transparency.
“Independent [media] in South Sudan is giving the best service by uncovering grievances in order to create a transparent, just and accountable society,” said Terso. “This service seems not to augur well with some individuals in government.”
Brian Dabbs is an internationally published print and photo journalist based in Nairobi
http://www.briandabbs.com/
26 Mar 12 | Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
Suddenly, bad African leaders are under the torch of public scrutiny: George Clooney is arrested while trying to draw attention to Sudan’s president Bashir. Former Kenyan ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Willam Ruto are on trial at the International Criminal Courts in the Hague. Blogs and websites are teeming with criticisms of Museveni in Uganda, who is being slated for many reasons: massacres against the Bunyara and Achioli people, and generally letting his country slide into “Big Man” rule. The king of Swaziland has faced renewed criticism for siphoning off the sugar taxes for his own use, (after lobbyists demanded Coca-cola revisited their activities there, since they were effectively propping up a dictatorship). Piracy and despotic warlords in the Indian Ocean are big news. The EU is upping the resources and naval might to counter piracy in the East Coast of Africa and now considering land strikes too.
Perhaps most visible Joseph Kony. The leader of the Lord´s Resistance Army (LRA). The short web film Kony2012 was been watched more than 100 million times in a week, (presumably mainly in the Western world, given the pathetic internet connections for most of us here). After Osama Bin Laden, Kony’s probably now the best known baddie in the world.
Millions responded to the call earlier this month to share the video, upload a personal response, or buy an “action kit”. A clear marketing success, apparently. At the same time, a Kony2012 screening in Lira in northern Uganda provoked outrage among thousands of spectators. The victims of Kony in Northern Uganda dismiss the project as humiliating and incorrect – a campaign at the expense of the people it claims to help.
This is not good. There is a real, and serious, grievance with ‘Western Paternalism’. Why were the makers of Kony 2012 not able to show it to the people it was supposed to help, before it went out on You Tube? Dialogue is wonderful, criticism, and the method of “shaming” leaders into change a valuable strategy, but there must be more equality. The conversation must be more two –way.
There’s nothing new about Kony, or the Lord’s Resistance Army, (LRA) or child soldiers. Though he’s left now, he was in Uganda for 26 years. International NGO’s (responding to work with their sister organisations locally) have been talking about these issues for over fifteen years. Today, eight years after abandoning northern Uganda, the LRA’s depleted band of a couple of hundred barefoot fighters is now somewhere in the borderlands between the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic. According to the “LRA Crisis Tracker” they have killed 98 civilians in the last 12 months and abducted 477.
The reason why Kony, and other crap African leaders are suddenly interesting for media in the Global North, is frankly a bit of a mystery for those of us who live here in Africa. Do issues only become important when the Global North decides so? Or when ‘White Messiahs’ living away from the messy complexities and loyalties of African life decide they can save us? As the Kony debate shows there are already many people and organisations established, connected, familiar and good at what they do here on the ground. Support them. Don’t start up new ones.
Frank, fierce and honest debate is needed, power-crazed maniacal leaders need challenging, bad democracies and weak civil societies do need changing and improving. If we don’t know how, or are too scared to complain, monitor, or just check on our leaders, or the legal structures and public media don’t exist, we can’t do it. A well-funded independent media, and constant discussion between Africa and Europe/USA is needed, but how about responding to what we are already doing, supporting existing efforts, and not barging in with all the ‘answers?’
Listen to what the people who live here are saying, and let the Global South, Africans, steer the debate. Women’s Civil Society Groups in Uganda have launched the “Kony2012 campaign, Blurring Realities”, and issued this statement :
” We have watched the campaign video and we believe that at the present time, it is out of context regarding the real issues of the conflict in Uganda. We therefore want to draw the world’s attention to the issues that we believe are of importance to the sufferers and survivors of this conflict.
For the last twenty six years, a lot has been done by different stakeholders in Uganda including the women’s movement, human rights organisations, academics, international development partners and bilateral agencies, in response to the atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The government of Uganda made an effort to end this war through the Juba peace process. …It is therefore not correct to say that nothing has been done in the last 26 years.
Some of the work by the civil society movement includes supporting the reconstruction efforts for the victims, and advocating to hold the government of Uganda accountable while working towards ending the conflict. …. While the idea of this campaign against the LRA leader Joseph Kony is welcome, the steam it has created overshadows the real concerns of the sufferers and survivors of this conflict in Uganda. Many former child soldiers and former abductees, women and girls, are now struggling with so many challenges such as reproductive health problems, post traumatic stress disorders, food insecurity and livelihood support among others. Due to war, there are many infrastructural challenges facing the entire population, and health problems like the nodding disease now affecting children in North and North Eastern Uganda. Capturing or killing Kony however does not put an end to the suffering of these survivors immediately.
We do realise that a lot of money has been/may be raised through this campaign dubbed Kony 2012. As the women’s movement, we believe that the biggest percentage of this fundraising should be used to support the various recovery efforts mentioned above.”
What kind of success is a film whose intended “beneficiaries” would rather do without?
20 Jan 12 | Events
Date: 14 March
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX
Tickets: £15, £12 – book here
In the first of a series of events between Index on Censorship and the Southbank Centre, South African novelist Nadine Gordimer will be speaking at the centre’s Literature and Spoken Word Festival on 14 March.
The 88-year-old writer, renowned for her activism, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She published her first novel in 1953, and has since gone on to publish short stories, plays and criticism in over 40 books, including The Conservationist, which won the Booker Prize in 1974. Gordimer’s latest novel, published to coincide with the event, is No Time Like the Present.
The festival will run from January to March. Tickets can be booked online here.
