There has been a steady increase in criminal and civil defamation suits in Southern Africa which has created an environment where self-preservation through self-censorship has become common practice, says a new report. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), in its annual publication, "So this is Democracy? State of the Media in Southern Africa", says it however witnessed an overall decrease in "conventional" media freedom violations such as physical attacks, arrests and detentions, and outright attempts to censor media workers.
The majority of criminal defamation cases in the region have been in Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a prime example of the criminalisation of media, reinforced by the promulgation of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), and the Public Order Security Act (POSA) in 2002.
It is a criminal offence to publish "false" information prejudicial to the state, or false information adversely affecting the economic interests of Zimbabwe or which undermines public confidence in a law enforcement agency, the prison services or the defence forces of the country. Over 80 journalists have been arrested and three newspapers have been closed down using AIPPA and POSA.
Civil defamation continues to be an effective way of curtailing the role of the press as a public watchdog, by economic attrition. In all jurisdictions in Southern Africa, there is no ceiling on the amount that can be demanded by the plaintiff. This makes civil defamation potentially more damaging than criminal defamation as media institutions are often crippled by the exorbitant legal costs that are often incurred in such matters. In this respect the media in Botswana, Lesotho and Zambia especially face the legal threat of disproportionately high awards given to civil defamation litigants against publishers.
At the end of 2006, MISA and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) completed the first round of African Media Barometer (AMB) surveys in the 11 SADC (Southern African Developing Community) countries where MISA is active: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The AMB is an assessment tool of the national media environments. A collective panel of media and civil society representatives assess their national environments according to 42 defined indicators. The benchmarks used are largely lifted from the African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights' Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression, adopted in 2002.
None of the countries under review have a media landscape that rated as predominantly free and independent. In southern Africa, South Africa came closest to this standard. For the rest, a lack of confidence prevails in the national broadcasters, and their relevance in the promotion of participatory development and democratisation. National and regional campaigns for broadcasting reform should therefore be prioritised, the MISA report said.
MISA issued 144 alerts in 2006 about press freedom violations in 11 SADC countries. The figure marked a decrease of 7.6 per cent from the previous year (155). This, however, is an increase of 7 per cent over the 84 alerts issued in 1994, when MISA first began monitoring press freedom violations in the subcontinent. This is the 13th consecutive year in which MISA has issued this publication, which records incidents of media freedom violations monitored in the previous year.
A breakdown of the 144 alerts issued last year shows that two journalists were killed, 12 media practitioners were attacked or beaten, one had his properties raided, 22 were detained, three were sentenced, 24 were threatened, one was expelled, 24 incidents of censorship were reported, 30 cases of legal action were recorded — where journalists faced legal action or where legislation was passed that affected the media, 17 victories were recorded and a further eight incidents were reported that proved a violation of freedom of expression that did not necessarily affect the media.
