Tangeni Amupadhi
A member of the Namibian Cabinet accompanied by two police officers this week barred a television news team of the public broadcaster from covering an impromptu press conference of an opposition party.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting Gabriel Shihepo hauled two Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) parliamentary journalists out of the press conference held by the Congress of Democrats (CoD) shortly after the party walked out of the National Assembly.
Shihepo told news writer Immanuel Usiku and cameraman Breschniff Katjaimo that they should not have followed the opposition party after it walked out of the National Assembly because they were assigned to cover proceedings inside Parliament.
Shihepo’s action is a rare and direct interference by the government in press freedom, which is guaranteed in the Namibian Constitution.
NBC director general Ben Mulongeni supported Shihepo’s actions, saying his journalists had made the “wrong judgment” call to take a camera from the National Assembly chambers to the press conference.
“If the proceedings [in the National Assembly] are not suspended, that camera has to be in the House. It is not a question of what is happening outside. It could be a snake that is killing people, that camera we cannot remove because it is covering something that is just as important,” said Mulongeni.
“He [the journalist] did not show respect to the people in Parliament. The minister [Shihepo] must have been embarrassed by that, and, mind you, he has to defend the NBC budget next week,” the broadcasting executive added.
“There is no mercy [towards the journalists]. That’s totally rubbish. That’s unacceptable. That is a disciplinary case,” said Mulongeni.
The NBC, which is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, depends almost entirely on government funding.
A member of the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s Namibia chapter said this week: “NBC is a public broadcaster and we feel that they should cover [news events] if they feel it is important. The journalists should decide [what to cover] and I don’t think they should be penalised for that.”
Shihepo could not be reached for comment.
The CoD, a party formed last year by former Robben Island prisoner and Swapo heavyweight Ben Ulenga, walked out of Parliament after National Assembly Speaker Mos Tjitendero announced that another party would become the official opposition.
The announcement ends months of speculation on which party becomes the main opposition after the CoD and the then Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) obtained seven seats each in the National Assembly. The CoD gained 3 000 more votes than the DTA.
The DTA then teamed up with another opposition party, the United Democratic Front, which obtained two seats, and formed a “parliamentary coalition” to become the official opposition.
The CoD said it regards the parliamentary coalition as invalid and would challenge the speaker’s decision.