SOUTHERN AFRICA AND JOURNALISM


Media freedom remains under threat in several countries in southern Africa with journalists put in jail for simply doing their job. Abduction of the journalist; attempts to muzzle the media and restrict the right to freedom of expression are normal scenes in many countries of the Southern African region. And we have seen many authorities treating the media-especially the private media firms and journalist as criminals; creating a space that is unfavourable for journalists to do their work safely without having fear of harassment or any type of torture. In recent years there have been many protests against the Southern African governments, demanding a vibrant and independent press environment that is essential for the enjoyment of human rights-journalist in particular. In some other cases, journalists are treated as enemies of the state, being alienated from the rest of the civil rights that every citizen in each of the Southern African countries’ constitutions should be having. With attacks on the right to freedom of expression, media freedom and the victimization of journalists for questioning the government’s handling of any cases being one of the common scenes that we find throughout southern Africa. Just as Deprose Muchena laments in an interview during the coronavirus outbreak,

‘Southern African authorities must respect the right to freedom of expression and media freedom and stop treating the media with contempt and open up the civic space for journalists to do their work freely and safely. The real enemy is COVID-19, not the media’

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/05/southern-africa-covid19-a-pretext-for-surge-in-harassment-of-journalists-and-weakening-of-media-houses-by-states/

The freedom of the press is the most important wheel of democracy, without it there we are nowhere near a democracy. In fact, the press is a great medium that conveys the truth to the people. Governments should stop treating journalist as criminals because the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. Thus, it is the responsibility of the media to remain vigil for people's safety. And what we've seen over the past decade in Southern Africa is nothing but high levels of press censorship. Every time there is evidence of press censorship, that is nothing less than dictatorship[either total or partial dictatorship]. When a government imposes censorship on the press, it obviously means it is trying to hide something. Thus the question comes; why was investigative journalist Hopewell Chinono arrested? To understand how a journalist can get so far up politicians’ noses, you have to understand just how limited access to information under Zimbabwe’s draconian press legislation and the ruling regime. It is a criminal offence to insult the president of the country’s powerful security operatives. 

A journalist in Meqheleng, South Africa claims he was assaulted twice by a group of police officers while attempting to document coronavirus lockdown enforcement for his newspaper. According to some local report, a journalist by the name Paul Nthoba, owner, and editor of the local newspaper Mohokare News, by the Caledon River on investigating complaints that lockdown enforcement in the area was flabby. While walking around, he saw a group of police officers and proceeded to take their picture to prove that the accusations of lax enforcement were unfounded. He took the picture, intending to ask the officers how they were doing, but before he could one of them allegedly responded with “a deeply offensive swear word.” And the tension quickly escalated from there when, according to Nthoba, the senior officer ordered the others to attack him. The Committee to Protect Journalists is called for an investigation, and asking that charges against the journalist be dropped. These are some of the cases you probably hear in South Africa about how the journalist and the environment they operate in coup together. About this issue, CPJ gave a statement that; ‘After being released, he was treated for “trauma, bruises, and swelling in his face, mouth, and head, as well as internal injuries.’’https://petapixel.com/2020/05/19/south-african-journalist-says-he-was-beaten-by-police-for-photographing-lockdown-enforcement/

‘In the past year, we have seen blatant attempts to muzzle the media and restrict the right to freedom of expression in countries such as Madagascar, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe’ said Deprose Muchena [Amnesty international 2019]. Since her independence, Mozambique has seen many debates on the challenges of journalism with professionals saying that, despite the approval of access to information law, the practice of journalism remains difficult. Some arguing that the problems of the 'poverty' of Mozambican journalism would not be solved by laws, they have to be more capable, more competence and less laziness. Journalists have endured persecution and deplored the lack of investigation into cases involving the shooting or disappearance of colleagues. “It is pitiful that when a journalist is shot, there is no thorough investigation’ complained journalist António Chimundo.https://clubofmozambique.com/news/mozambican-journalists-request-professional-status-and-press-card/

The increased influence of new media platforms, the hyperpolarization and vulgarization of the political discourse, the need sustainable independent journalism, all those difficulties are true in most countries but they are painfully accentuated in the current political and economic settings in Southern Africa. The atmosphere in the newsroom has become very tense. With no one free to speak in fear of being accused of trying to destabilize the government and promote social disorder. With intense political tensions and commercial interests at stake at the moment, a lot of the information is carried in traditional media during these crises and the data is either manipulated or incomplete, leading the general population to grow disillusioned about the veracity of the news they read in the paper. Sometimes when the journalist tells stories it makes people uncomfortable, but that is their job isn't. Governments should not charge them and silence them. They have no right in drawing a hard line of having journalists protected so that it’s not police using their discretion to decide what is and isn’t journalism. Our governments here, their governments there, and governments in Southern Africa, they should care!!!

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