allAfrica.com: South Africa: A Place Where Press Freedom is Not the Norm (Page 1 of 1)

RECENT reports of the imminent arrest of the Sunday Times editor and a senior journalist prompted extreme distress, here and abroad, among defenders of media freedom.

If the response was a little overanxious (given official claims that there are no such plans), it is in part because such arrests, far from making SA exceptional, would confirm that it intended to follow the norms of the region. Despite the African Union's (AU's) affirmation of the importance of freedom of expression as a "cornerstone of democracy and a means of ensuring respect for all rights and freedoms", there are few places today where freedom of expression, particularly media freedom, is more in peril than in the southern Africa region. In June, the Lesotho government issued a decree ordering all government departments and parastatals to desist from advertising with Public Eye, an independent newspaper with the largest distribution of any local print media. This decree is in clear violation of the AU Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa (2002), which provide that "states shall not use their power over placement of public advertising as a means to interfere with media content".

In a separate case, Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili is preparing to appear as a witness against Thabo Thakalekoala, a prominent journalist charged with "failing to report subversive activity" under Lesotho's 1984 internal security law. Thakalekoala was detained after he read out a letter on air, allegedly written by unnamed army officers, which called for the arrest of Mosisili and his entire cabinet for corruption. The testimony of so powerful a figure from the executive branch not only threatens press freedom, including the traditional freedom to protect sources, but also compromises the integrity of the judicial process.

In Angola, prominent journalist Graca Campos, the owner of and director of the country's leading independent newspaper, Semanario Angonese, has been sentenced to eight months in jail and fined $250000 after being found guilty of slandering former justice minister Paulo Tjipilica, now the country's ombudsman.

It is reported that Campos will not be able to appeal the finding and remains in prison, even after his lawyer lodged an appeal for the sentence to be suspended. This is a serious violation of the right of every individual to have their cause heard.

In a similar case, where journalist Rafael Marques was convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment on a charge of abuse of the press resulting in injury to the president of Angola, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the conviction and sentence constituted an unlawful interference with the right of freedom of expression. Commenting on the Marques case, the Open Society Justice Initiative said that according to international and domestic jurisprudence, criminal sanctions for expression are capable of severely undermining the vigour and quality of democratic debate.

In Swaziland, police routinely break up peaceful and lawful assemblies of civil society groups in clear violation of Swaziland's new constitution's provisions of freedom of expression and assembly. And the Democratic Republic of Congo has recently banned 22 private television channels and 16 radio stations, in part, it appears, to suppress the dissemination of views critical of the government. It is reported that two journalists from another private television channel were recently beaten up on the express orders of a government minister.

Most disturbing of all, the Zimbabwean government is said to have released a hit list of 15 editors and political reporters from the private media perceived as being hostile to the government. The listed journalists are to be placed "under strict surveillance and taken in on various dates".

Incidentally, the first person on that list is ZimOnline editor Abel Mutsakani, who was shot and seriously wounded in July by unknown assailants in Johannesburg.

And the list goes on ...

Yet as long as SA continues to be perceived to have a stable and positive press freedom policy, there exists real potential to leverage its reputation for greater freedom of expression within the region more broadly.

Of course, it isn't only for SA to teach the region about press freedom. Indeed, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad would do well to take note of a Botswana High Court decision of 2001, which held that the government's removal of advertising from two publications critical of the government constituted a violation of the publications' constitutional rights to free speech.

But for the most part, journalists and editors working in southern Africa must envy the comparative freedom of their South African counterparts. Should SA not use its reputation for press freedom for regional advancement and choose instead to borrow from the policies of its neighbours , should it choose to send its editors and journalists to prison for doing what it is they are best required to do, it is hard to see how change will ever come.

Kuveya is the project lawyer for the Southern Africa Litigation Centre's new Media Defence Programme.

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