Tuesday 21 of September 2010
Somalia: Article 19 on Amendments to the 2007 Media Law
This Comment outlines ARTICLE 19’s key concerns with the Drat Amendments aiming to reform the problematic Media Law of Somalia (“Media Law”).1 Adopted in December 2007, the Media Law has a number of problematic provision and subjects all media to a largely government controlled regulatory regime. For this reason, the Media Law was criticised by media freedom activities, including ARTICLE 19, that called on the authorities to revise the Law to bring it into line with international standards.
In August, ARTICLE 19 was informed that the Ministry of Information of Somalia and the National Union of Somali Journalists (“NUSOJ)” have undertaken an initiative to reform the
Media Law of Somalia. A Draft Amendment was produced as a result of two consultative meetings of representatives of the NUSOJ with the International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Sans Frontiers and the UN Human Rights Committee. ARTICLE 19 was requested to provide its/a view of the latter proposals for new provisions to be included in the Draft Amendment.
The Draft Amendment envisages significantly changes in the legal framework in the media field. Few provisions of the current law will remain the same if the proposed amendments are adopted. ARTICLE 19 supports these efforts in view of our critical assessment of the existing law. Our comments, hereunder, are based on observations about the compliance of both the existing Media Law and the proposed amendments with international media freedom standards and best practices.
Positive features Overall, the Draft Amendment is a welcome improvement on the existing law. In particular, it has many positive features including the following:
CLICK HERE to read the entire comment of article 19
- September 2010 by Article 19
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Source: www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/somalia-comment.pdf (accessed on 20.09.10)