Journalists beware
In recent months there has been a continent-wide spike in reports of the abduction, shooting, imprisonment and harassment of journalists during the course of their duties across Africa, and it raises serious questions about commitments all these countries ostensibly made when they appanded their names to the Windhoek Declaration, for example in ensuring the safety of journalists and freedom of the press.
From Burkina Faso, that notorious land infamously known for the 1998 gruesome killing and burning of journalist Norbet Zongo, to our neighbor Zambia where “ailing” Michael Sata is exhibiting Robert Mugabe’s hyper-sensitivity to criticism, to our very own where one journalist answered a knock at the door of his home only to be brutally assaulted by enigmatic characters who are still at large.
In the Gambia, government has moved to restrict internet freedom, while in Gabon, government shut down newspapers critical to the State, and one wonders why it is that while others are celebrating the promise of online platforms and privately owned newspapers as the present and future of freedom of information and unfettered news production, some behemoths imagine they will succeed in stopping a revolution whose time has come, to borrow a phrase.
And indeed Zimbabwean journalists have said they fear for their lives during these coming elections, with one senior journalist actually advising junior colleagues that they should move in packs wherever they are assigned as there is safety in numbers.
Such advice is indeed very useful, knowing the treatment journalists have received even outside election periods.
But numbers of people armed with pens and notebooks are no match to numbers armed with sjamboks and cudgels!
And many of the countries who have seen a rise in the harassment of journalists, are typically having elections this year or in 2014, and they are the same regimes that are keen to see the legitimating of their governments by other countries be it the AU, the same AU that has made commitments to press freedom, or international community, but still do everything in their power to invite adverse reports by literally giving the press a beating.
And then these people get someone commenting that Africa is a dangerous place to work as a journalist, yes, viewing the continent through that prism of it being one huge homogenous space, and scream exaggeration!
But then, not everything has to make sense. It is okay when it only suits the mandarins in charge of “regulating” media space, and one will recall the “promise” made by Mahoso that private TV players will be licenced in 2103, only to have the same people condemning the appearance of 1st TV. What tosh!
Reflecting on the treatment on journalists in Zimbabwe, I recalled an incident reported a few years ago where a reporter from a privately-owned newspaper was assaulted by war veterans or Zanu PF activists (but then what’s the difference?) while “colleagues” from the State media witnessed it with unbridled glee and wondered if there is any hope for Zimbabwe’s media landscape to be a safe working space from 31 July to and beyond, but then this ain’t no time for pessism.