Silence reigned supreme in Eritrea, where the entire independent press was under a government ban and 11 journalists languished in jail at year’s end. Clamorous, deadly power struggles raged in Zimbabwe over land and access to information, and in Burundi over ethnicity and control of state resources. South Africa, Senegal, and Benin remained relatively liberal…
While the South African media is widely respected throughout the continent, the South African government’s attitude to press freedom is riddled with contradictions. On one hand, the Promotion of Access to Information Act, which went into effect in March, granted citizens access to any personal information held by the state and private entities. The authorities…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the deterioration of press freedom in several SADC member states, including your own country, Malawi. Our research reveals an alarming pattern of harassment and intimidation of independent journalists, severe censorship, and the use of repressive laws to silence those perceived to oppose ruling parties and governments.
New York, August 3—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by South Africa’s proposed Interception and Monitoring Bill, which empowers the police, the National Defense Force, the Intelligence Agency, and the Secret Service to “establish, equip, operate and maintain monitoring centers.” If adopted, the legislation would allow the government to monitor electronic and…
New York, April 27, 2001 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the safety of two South African journalists who have been subpoenaed to testify against a murderous vigilante group that has threatened to kill them if they comply. In August 1996, journalist Kobus Louwrens and photographer Christo Lötter, both from…
A LONG-AWAITED REPORT ON MEDIA AND RACISM IN POST-APARTHEID South Africa was issued in August, to the relief of many who had feared it might erode constitutional protections for press freedom. Titled Faultlines, the report of the quasi-independent South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) was the end result of an investigation announced in late 1998,…
By Claudia McElroyAll over Africa, conflict continued to be the single biggest threat to journalists and to press freedom itself. Both civil and cross-border wars were effectively used as an excuse by governments (and rebel forces) to harass, intimidate, and censor the press–often in the name of “national security”–and in some cases to kill journalists…
Thabo Mbeki succeeded President Nelson Mandela following the resounding victory of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa’s second democratic election on June 2. Local journalists worried that the ANC’s victory would herald a new era of media repression. Neither Mandela nor Mbeki had ever disguised his dislike for the press, complaining that…
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply saddened by the recent death of our colleague Chola Bright Mwape, Regional Information Co-ordinator at the Media Institute of South Africa in Windhoek. Mr. Mwape, a Zambian national and a former newspaper reporter and editor, was known and respected all over the world as a leading authority on…