Many Malawians stayed up late on Monday to watch the return of Big Brother Africa on the country’s only television station after the High Court quashed a ban imposed over the show’s sex scenes.
The country’s lawmakers clamped the ban on the popular reality series two weeks ago on grounds that some of its sex scenes promoted immorality in this highly conservative Southern African nation, where sex remains a taboo subject.
”It’s great we are back. It’s a test for democracy and we will only respond to the wishes of the people,” said the station’s manager, Benson Tembo.
The station, which says it broadcasts to an estimated three million Malawians, said thousands of residents stayed up late on Monday night to watch the show’s return.
”Democracy is working in Malawi. Why should our MPs deny us to see what we want when most of them will see the same show through
satellite television?” said Blantyre resident Kondwani Chikumbutso.
Tembo said the court decision had helped the state-run station regain its editorial independence, adding: ”We want to act independent of government.”
Information Minister Bernard Chisale, himself an MP from the governing United Democratic Front, also hailed the decision, saying his fellow lawmakers had ”overreacted and were emotional” when they overwhelmingly voted to ban the show.
”They should have consulted the people first,” he said.
The High Court ruling was made in a case brought by a Malawi citizen, Sam Mlanjira, who sued Parliament last week over the ban.
His lawyer, Noel Chalamanda, had argued that the ban was outside Parliament’s power and accused MPs of ”fleecing people’s constitutional rights to free information and participation in cultural issues of their choice.”
The televison station said it will continue screening an edited version of the show — in which a group of housemates live in a building equipped with television cameras until one by one they are eliminated on the basis of viewers’ votes.
A Malawian was the second person to be evicted from the show, but his entry into the show attracted a lot of interest in his home country.
It was the first time that lawmakers had influenced programming on the local television station, which rarely shows sex scenes and started broadcasting only in 1999. — Sapa-AFP