A new Bill before the Namibian legislature proposes stiff penalties for journalists found in ‘contempt of Parliament’, reports Graham Hopwood
JOURNALISTS are fearful that Namibia’s era of official goodwill towards the media is over after the tabling of a draft law which seeks to punish journalists for reporting leaks or “false information” on parliamentary affairs.
The Privileges and Immunities Bill currently before the Namibian Parliament makes deliberate or accidental errors in reporting on Parliament punishable by a maximum fine of R20 000 and/or five years in prison.
Journalists who report on confidential parliamentary reports, and the MPs or officials who leak them, are also subject to the same sentences under the Bill.
The Bill’s main intention is to allow MPs immunity from prosecution for comments made in Parliament.
Human rights lawyer Dave Smuts said the clauses in the Bill targeting the press “offend against the freedom of the media enshrined in the Namibian Constitution” and would have a “chilling effect” on parliamentary reporting.
He called on Namibia’s two houses — the National Assembly and the National Council — to reconsider and omit the provisions.
Six years afer Namibia’s independence the country’s print media are worried that the Bill is a signal of growing government intolerance towards the press.
Namibia’s public broadcaster, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, has gradually had its editorial independence eroded by the government since independence, but the often critical print media have not faced official sanction until now.
The attack on the media in the Immunities Bill has left Namibia’s newspaper editors seeking unlikely allies in Namibia’s house of legislative review, the National Council, of which many members are known for their often conservative views.
In a recent National Council debate on the Bill, Swapo MP Michael Hishikushitja urged that Parliament be empowered to punish journalists who are found guilty of “contempt of Parliament”.
Hishikushitja’s statement prompted Carol Kotze, editor of The Windhoek Advertiser, to say he was “taking a leaf out of the Zambian book”. Three journalists from the Lusaka-based newspaper The Post were recently sentenced to prison terms after commentaries they wrote were found to be in contempt of Parliament.
If the Swapo-dominated council does not reject the anti-media clauses, the Bill is likely to go straight to President Sam Nujoma for his assent without amendment.
In a letter to National Council members, The Namibian’s acting editor, Jean Sutherland, said this week that if the Bill becomes law it will be the “first serious blot” on Namibia’s press freedom record.
She said the Bill was “disturbing” as it sought “to punish journalists for reporting on leaked parliamentary documents, without acknowledging that most in cases leaks are published in the public interest”.
Journalists and human rights activists are also concerned that the term “false information” is open to wide interpretation and could be used to punish the media for legitimate comment, interpretation and reports on controversial issues.
Signs that official tolerance of Namibia’s free press is beginning to wane were further underlined by the fact that the Bill was introduced in Parliament by Prime Minister Hage Geingob, widely regarded as a moderate who has previously consulted the media about providing more “open government”.
The controversy over the Immunities Bill follows official attacks on the book, Namibia: The Wall of Silence, which deals with Swapo’s human rights abuses committed in exile.
In response to German priest Siegfried Groth’s account of atrocities against Swapo detainees, President Sam Nujoma lambasted the book as “false history” in a television broadcast to the nation.
Swapo secretary general Moses Garoeb went further, declaring war on what he called the “foreign remnants of fascism” backing the book.
Last weekend, at an event to mark the 36th anniversary of the formation of Swapo, Garoeb stuck to his theme, saying in an apparent reference to the Groth controversy that there was “a snake threatening Swapo” but that the party was ready to “kill the snake and cut off its head”.
Former Swapo detainees have called for a South African-style truth commission to open up the issue of atrocities committed before independence.