WPFR Africa Overview: No Light at the End of the Tunnel

African journalists faced a vast array of violations of their right to press freedom and freedom of expression in 2009. These included intimidation, harassment, threats, attacks, beatings, illegal detentions, arrests and imprisonment. Their equipment was confiscated and destroyed; many were forced to flee their home countries or stop reporting. Media houses were censored and sometimes shut down; their broadcast signals were jammed and copies of their publications were seized. Newspapers, broadcasters and journalists alike faced spurious lawsuits. Many reporters were slapped with criminal charges, often for alleged defamation and sedition, and very often for covering corruption or the activities of security forces.

 

At least 14 African journalists lost their lives in connection with their work in 2009. On 29 January, journalist Francis Nyaruri, who had exposed local police corruption, was found decapitated in a forest in Kenya. Attempts to solve his murder fell apart after witnesses received death threats. On 2 February, Mwinda online newspaper columnist Bruno Jacquet Ossébi succumbed to injuries from an unexplained fire in his home in Brazzaville, Congo. Television journalist Ando Ratovonirina was killed on 7 February along with over twenty others when police fired on demonstrators in Antananarivo, Madagascar.  Radio journalist Bruno Koko Chirambiza was stabbed to death on his way home from work in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late August. In September, Nigerian news editor Bayo Ohu was shot dead by gunmen in his home. Nine Somali journalists and media workers were killed in 2009. Their names were: Hassan Mayow Hassan, Said Tahlil Ahmed, Abdirisak Warsameh Mohammed, Nur Muse Hussein, Muktar Mohamed Hirabe, Mohamud Mohamed Yusuf, Mohamed Amin Adan Abdulle, Hassan Zubeyr Haji Hassan and Abdigafar Abdulkadir Hassan.

 

At least fourteen African journalists lost their lives in connection with their work in 2009.

In Africa, some countries are worse press freedom offenders than others, and some techniques of repression are used more than others in certain countries.  The laws of a country (and judges’ fair interpretations of those laws) should help keep its journalists safe; unfortunately, several African countries passed potentially or explicitly restrictive legislation this year.  Many maintain criminal defamation, national security and other laws that carry heavy prison sentences and which are used as tools to silence critical reporting. In several countries that were holding or preparing for elections, or in which there was a political crisis, journalists faced a gamut of press freedom violations. 

 

Violence and the threat of violence against journalists and their families create a climate of fear, leading to self-censorship.  African journalists in 2009 were assaulted and intimidated by government officials, state security and other armed forces, political party supporters, run-of-the-mill thugs and other individuals.

 

Physical attacks and beatings were reported in Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of  Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

 

Threats, including death threats, were made in public or slipped anonymously under doors at night, sent by email and text message, or delivered on the telephone. Some forms of intimidation were physical; others included verbal attacks, arbitrary searches and seizure of equipment, and raids on journalists’ homes. Specific instances of threats and intimidation were reported in several countries, including Burkina Faso, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, DRC, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

 

While these may seem like long lists, in reality they may be even longer, because they cover only those attacks and intimidation actually reported in 2009. In many countries, press freedom conditions are so poor that almost no information is available.

 

Media outlets, including broadcasters and publishers, faced direct censorship, suspensions of operations, closures, seizures of equipment and copies of publications as well as physical attacks and raids.  Journalists associated with certain media houses were often barred from covering events, or had their licenses suspended.

 

Media outlets were suspended on the basis of various accusations, such as inciting violence, or over technicalities, often relating to accreditation or licensing.  In many countries, it is the norm that journalists and media houses operate unlicensed, which gives the authorities a pretext on which to shut down stations and newspapers.  In 2009, media outlets were reportedly suspended or closed in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, DRC, Eritrea, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo and Uganda. 

 

Private media remained shuttered in several countries, notoriously in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe – although in the latter two there have been some very limited improvements. 

 

After leading a November 2009 mission to Lebanon, IPI Director David Dadge said in a statement: “It is quite obvious that there have been improvements, especially the commitment to the freedom of information law. But too often, the government is intransigent on issues regarding critical media. Contrary to the government’s view, the issuing of licenses to critical media is a sign of maturity and confidence in a functioning democracy. The government also has a lingering desire to exert influence over the media, especially state media, which currently falls far short of traditional public service models.”

 

In December, editors at the private Ethiopian newspaper Addis Neger chose to close shop, saying they had received a tip-off that they were to be the target of “terrorism” charges that could have seen them imprisoned for up to 20 years. The editors and some staff members have fled the country. IPI remains in touch with them.

 

At the time, the paper’s managing editor, Mesfin Negash, told IPI: “The reason we left the country is basically because we found out that the government is preparing charges to take us to court. According to our reliable sources within the government and the international community in Addis Ababa, the government is cooking a number of charges against us both individually and as a company. Actually this is just the culmination of the smear campaign begun four years ago against our newspaper and its founders and journalists. The government daily, Addis Zemen, and the party-affiliated website, aigaforum.com, has published more than ten articles targeted against Addis Neger.”

 

Specific instances in which journalists were suspended from their duties, prevented from attending events or leaving the country were reported in Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

 

Physical attacks on media outlets, including bombings, raids and seizures of equipment, were reported in DRC, Eritrea, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Somalia and Zambia.

 

In Somalia, where fighting between Al Shabab and other militants and government forces continues, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) reported the closure of four media houses, and physical attacks on the premises of several others. 

 

Authorities silenced the media in Africa through news blackouts, bans on certain kinds of broadcast programs, seizures of publications, signal jamming, website blocking or other direct censorship in Botswana, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, Togo and Uganda.

 

Among the favourite tools used to silence the media in Africa are criminal libel and insult laws, including laws that protect the reputations of public officials. Such legislation has been used to lock up journalists or bankrupt publications and broadcasters. These laws have a chilling effect on the media. Criminal libel charges were reportedly brought against the media and media professionals in Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe.  

 

In November, Sierra Leone’s Supreme Court threw out a case for the repeal of criminal and seditious libel. The case had been brought by the country’s national journalists’ association in February 2008.  The court ruled that the provisions were in line with the country’s 1991 constitution and that “journalists are under no imminent threat.”  In Sierra Leone, therefore, journalists still face prison terms of one to three years for the malicious publication of “defamatory matter,” and will not be allowed to use the truth of their statements as a defence. 

 

Charges related to other “criminal offenses”, including “false publication,” “incitement to violence,” “aiding terrorists,” “breaching public decency” and others, are frequently used try and jail journalists.  Journalists in Angola, Cameroon, DRC, Gambia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Swaziland, Uganda and Zambia were tried or imprisoned on criminal charges other than defamation this year. 

 

In one case of a government using criminal defamation and other legislation to target critical journalists, the Gambian authorities arrested six editors and journalists in June after they criticized comments made by President Yahya Jammeh. They were sentenced to two years in prison on criminal defamation and seditious publication charges, but were freed by presidential pardon in September.  Pap Saine, one of the six journalists imprisoned in June, still faces and has faced numerous other spurious criminal charges. They are believed to be punishment for his sustained criticism of Jammeh’s policies, and because his newspaper, The Point, continues to remind its readers that the murderers of co-founder and editor Deyda Hydara, who was killed in 2004, have never been found.

 

As the trial continued, in July, President Jammeh warned journalists in a notorious statement to state-owned GRTS television: “Any journalist who thinks that he or she can write whatever he or she wants, and go free, is making a big mistake. If anybody is caught, he will be severely dealt with.”

 

In response, IPI Director David Dadge said in a statement: “IPI believes that President Jammeh’s recent threatening public statement to journalists is just another sign of the climate of fear in which journalists must work in Gambia. President Jammeh’s comments would be unacceptable in any country, but they are made worse because they come from a president who is deeply prejudiced against an independent media. The Gambian authorities must immediately drop all charges against the seven journalists, and implement all previous rulings of the ECOWAS community court.”  

 

IPI, which followed the case closely, and repeatedly issued condemnatory statements, was pleased that the journalists were ultimately released but remains highly concerned about the state of press freedom in Gambia.

 

In another instance of prosecutors using trumped-up charges to punish a critical news outlet, editor Chansa Kabwela, of the Zambian daily, The Post, was charged in June 2009 with distributing obscene materials after she circulated a photograph of a woman giving birth in the street to the Zambian health minister and other officials, to highlight the effects of a health sector strike. She was acquitted in November; however, The Post owner Fred M’membe now faces contempt charges over an article by Cornell University Law Professor Muna Ndulo published in The Post and calling the Kabwela case a “comedy of errors.”

 

In July, one of Kabwela’s lawyers, Sam Mujuda, told IPI that her arrest was “purely political,” and was the result of public comments made by Zambian President Rupiah Banda. “His aim is to cause fear, to intimidate The Post,” said Mujuda, who is also deputy managing editor of the daily newspaper.

 

Journalists in an unsettling number of African countries suffered abductions, arbitrary detentions and detentions without charge in 2009. Press freedom monitors reported such violations in Angola, Cameroon, Chad, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

 

In Eritrea, which boasts one of the world’s most repressive media environments, the authorities reportedly detained around 50 journalists at once, after raiding the offices of Radio Bana in February.

 

Eritrea remains one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, as highlighted by the IPI Justice Denied campaign.  Around 18 journalists imprisoned by the government of President Isaias Afewerki, first in 2001 following a political crackdown and later in a state media purge in 2006, remain in custody. Held incommunicado and reportedly under barbaric conditions, they have no access to their families, medical care or legal counsel. A number are believed to have died.

 

Several new laws and decrees that came into being in 2009 represent either direct violations of press freedom or could be interpreted in a way that limits press freedom.

 

The government of Botswana published the Media Practitioners Law on the last day of 2008. The law sets up a regulatory body for the Botswana media. Free press groups criticized the bill’s hasty passage, as well as provisions that put the Minister of Communications, Science and Technology in charge of appointing complaints and appeals committees. The act also requires journalists to be accredited; failure to register can result in up to three years in prison. 

 

The Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill was signed into law in January, giving the government control of broadcast licenses and the content of news programs. The bill provides high fines and prison terms for press-related crimes. Following sustained criticism by the media and rights groups, amendments removing the government right to control broadcast content and raid stations were published in May.

 

The Ethiopian government passed two repressive new laws in 2009: the Charities and Societies Proclamation in January, and the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in July. The former forbids foreign NGOs from working on human rights, governance and other issues, and defines as “foreign” any NGO receiving more than 10 percent of funding from outside the country. The new anti-terrorism law has more direct consequences for the press. Anyone who reports something deemed to support terrorism can be jailed for up to 20 years, and terrorism suspects can be detained for four months without charge. National security forces no longer need a warrant to tap phones or intercept communications, or to search and seize property.

 

The 1994 genocide continues to cast long shadows over the Rwandan media - and media law. On 23 July, Parliament passed the Genocide Ideology Law, which press freedom advocacy group Article 19 said should be repealed, as its provisions “would catch a whole range of legitimate forms of expression.”  The group noted, however, that a draft law on access to information needed few changes to become a model for the region.  

 

In August, the Films and Publications Amendment Bill was signed into law in South Africa. Critics complained that the law, designed to combat child pornography, could promote censorship. They expressed concern about provisions forbidding the depiction of sexual conduct, incitement to violence and war propaganda. Later in the year, a draft version of The Protection of Harassment Bill caused concern amongst journalists and press freedom groups, who worried that the act’s definition of “harassment” could be interpreted to cover methods journalists regularly use in pursuit of investigative stories.

 

As Islamist Al-Shabab militants solidified their control over much of southern Somalia, they issued several repressive media decrees, according to the NUSOJ 2009 report on press freedom in Somalia. Playing music on air is banned, as are interviews with “infidels” - members of the Transitional Federal Government. Journalists must refer to Al-Shabab militants as “mujahedeen” or martyrs. Most disturbingly, Al-Shabab have reportedly “sworn in the name of Allah” to kill any journalist broadcasting information against their administration.

 

In African countries facing pre- or post-election tension, a series of press freedom violations were reported; this was particularly true in Gabon and Uganda. 

 

In Gabon, journalists were targeted in connection with reports on President Omar Bongo’s health, questions of succession, and corruption in his government. Attacks continued after his death in June and around the time of the August elections, which put his son in power. During this period, six newspapers and a television program were suspended. Journalists faced censorship and harassment, arbitrary detentions, threats and intimidation by criminal investigation police, and raids on media houses.

 

 In the run-up to general elections planned for 2011, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s government began a crackdown on the media, which worsened with political tensions.  Criminal charges, including libel, sedition and inciting violence, were brought against several journalists in connection with their reporting. Broadcasters were warned against “inciting public discontent.” Talk-show host Kalundi Sserumaga was detained and reportedly tortured. Live debate programmes were banned. Two editors were charged with sedition after publishing a cartoon that made fun of Museveni for rigging elections. Four radio stations were shut down for allegedly “inciting riots”; later that month, Radio Saptiensa re-opened but another station was shut down in its place. Security forces detained and beat journalists on several occasions.

 

Political unrest in Guinea, Madagascar and Niger also led to increased attacks on the media. In Guinea, where Captain Moussa Dadis Camara took power in a coup in December 2008, journalists faced regular intimidation, threats and censorship, assaults, destruction of equipment, arrests and suspensions. On 28 September, thousands of demonstrators who had gathered at a stadium in Conakry to protest Camara’s announced intention to run for president in 2010 were violently dispersed; over a hundred were killed and thousands injured and sexually assaulted. Journalists were amongst those detained by the army at the demonstration, and some possibly remain in detention.  Several journalists who covered the violence were forced into hiding after receiving threats. In October, private radio stations were reportedly forced to cancel their political shows in the face of continued harassment by opposition supporters and members of the military. Capt. Camara, who has suggested that the army is not entirely under his control, was shot by dissenters this December and taken out of the country for medical treatment.

 

In Madagascar this year, media houses were raided, and their equipment was confiscated and destroyed, as a result of a political crisis in the country that resulted, in March, in Andry Rajoelina’s installation as president. Ironically, Rajoelina’s conflict with his predecessor originated when the former president tried to close a television station Rajoelina owned. In March, five publications were forced to stop printing as a result of violence and intimidation against editors and journalists. Websites were reportedly blocked. Journalists were harassed, attacked, arrested, detained, and one was killed.  Ando Ratovonirina, a journalist with Radio Télévision Analamanga (RTA), was shot along with over twenty demonstrators when police opened fire on an anti-government demonstration at the Presidential Palace in the capital in February.

 

On June 26, Niger President Mamadou Tandja assumed emergency powers after dissolving the constitutional court. The president of the country’s Supreme Council on Communications (CSC) was granted broad powers of censorship, which were promptly used to ban Dounia Television and Radio. The suspension was thrown out by a high court shortly afterwards. Live discussions on privately owned media were banned. Journalists were arrested and jailed for material allegedly undermining public order, disseminating false information and criminal defamation. In August, the president signed into law an act that gave him control over the CSC.

 

In 2009, as in previous years, conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in Somalia threatened journalists’ safety.  In DRC, although local rights group Journaliste en Danger said press freedom violations were down in 2009, journalists were still arrested and imprisoned for defamation and insults to the head of state, interrogated and detained in connection with publications and broadcasts, threatened and attacked. Media houses were raided, attacked and closed. One journalist was murdered. Impunity persisted: the major suspect in the 2008 murder of Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo escaped from his prison cell in November 2009, only five days after he was apprehended.

 

Nine journalists were killed this year in Somalia, both in targeted murders and as casualties of continued armed conflict between Islamist militants and the TFG. This made Somalia by far the most dangerous country in Africa, and one of the most dangerous places in the world, for journalists. Other journalists were threatened, intimidated, arrested, detained without charge, interrogated, imprisoned, attacked, beaten, and wounded in suicide bombings and shoot-outs, according to NUSOJ and other reports.  In the regions of Puntland and Somaliland, local authorities and security forces were responsible for harassment, arrests, intimidation and physical violence against journalists.

 

“Despite the ongoing conflict, all parties must respect the independence of the media and allow journalists to practice their profession without fear of harassment and detention,” IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said in a statement in October 2009.

 

In October 2009, one IPI source in Somalia, who cannot be named for safety reasons, reported that journalists throughout Somalia have been receiving “daily phone threats” from various groups, particularly “when tensions are high.”  The source added that journalists also receive intimidating calls from people pretending to be members of political groups, but have no way of distinguishing these from serious threats.

 

In Zimbabwe, following a power-sharing deal between the Movement for Democratic Change and President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai promised that press freedom would return to Zimbabwe. There is much damage to be undone: Foreign journalists were barred from living in Zimbabwe. Repressive and draconian accreditation, privacy and access to information laws have ensured the closure of most of Zimbabwe’s private media. A slew of national security legislation and criminal defamation laws are regularly used to harass and imprison journalists and promote self-censorship. The government closely controls content in its two newspapers, The Herald and The Chronicle, as well as of the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).

 

In May, Tsvangirai said that foreign journalists could report from Zimbabwe and that there was no obligation for journalists and media houses to apply for accreditation until the new Zimbabwe Media Commission is established. (Hiring practices for the new Commission were later called into question by media freedom groups.) In July, a ban on the BBC and CNN was lifted, and the year-old luxury tax on foreign newspapers was lifted. The Daily News, a popular private newspaper, forced to close along with several other publications in 2003, was granted a license to resume publication.

 

In July, state prosecutors admitted that the December 2008 abduction and detention of ZBC newsreader Jestina Mukoko, who was held in solitary confinement, tortured, and charged with banditry and terrorism, had been illegal.

 

Despite these small signs, Zimbabwean journalists, like so many of their African colleagues, were harassed, threatened, assaulted, arrested, detained and tortured in 2009. Much work remains to be done.

 

-February 9, 2010 by Naomi Hunt

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Source: www.freemedia.at/regions/africa/singleview/4737/ (accessed on 15.02.10)